Chapter 259 My biased mother wants me to adopt my younger brother’s son!
There are so many forces involved in Princess Zhaohua's marriage that even the new emperor finds it difficult to make a decision.
After all, even if he could make up his mind to support Princess Zhaohua to ascend the throne, the empress should have a queen to manage the harem in the future. But for the first empress in history, what were the rules for the empress to marry a royal husband?
To arrange Princess Zhaohua's marriage, the emperor approached Si Yuan, the first person who had pushed a woman to enter the court.
After listening to the emperor's distress, Si Yuan was speechless and said, "Before the late emperor ascended the throne, his first wife had already passed away due to illness. After the late emperor ascended the throne, he did not appoint a queen. The court remained stable. It was also very appropriate for the harem to be managed by three concubines."
Therefore, if a male emperor does not have a queen, there is no instability in the court and harem. So why is it that when it comes to a female emperor, she must have a royal husband?
The emperor was awakened by Si Yuan's words and immediately came to his senses. He no longer thought about how to worry about Princess Zhaohua's marriage.
After all, he truly admired the talents of this legitimate daughter. If he really intended to make Princess Zhaohua the crown prince, then it would be most appropriate for her not to get married and not formally take a husband.
Princess Zhaohua was also a ruthless character. Not long after, she announced that she was pregnant. As for who the father of the child was - no one knew.
After all, she has so many lovers. Today he sleeps with her, and tomorrow another handsome man sleeps with her. How can she tell them apart? Anyway, no matter who the child's father is, the child is in her belly after all, and that child is of pure royal blood. No one can question the child's bloodline.
Several other princes also wanted to use the unknown father of the child in Princess Zhaohua's belly and the fact that Princess Zhaohua was pregnant before marriage, which damaged the reputation of the royal family, as an excuse to attack Princess Zhaohua's faction.
However, they did not know that it was precisely because the father of the child was unknown that the supporters under Princess Zhaohua felt more at ease, because they did not have to worry that their hard work in supporting Princess Zhaohua would end up being reaped the greatest fruits of victory by the family of the biological father of the child in Princess Zhaohua's belly.
Just like those princes, among the family forces that supported them to ascend the throne, if they succeeded in the end, the ones who would benefit the most would of course be the family behind the prince's wife and the family behind the mother of the emperor's grandson.
The father of the child in Princess Zhaohua's belly is unknown, which means that the lord they are loyal to not only has an heir, but also this heir has no paternal clan behind him to compete with them for the fruits of victory.
The other princes thought that Princess Zhaohua's pregnancy before marriage and the unknown father of the child were Princess Zhaohua's handles, but they didn't know that this was Princess Zhaohua's advantage.
Even the emperor was waiting for Princess Zhaohua to give birth to her heir.
Princess Zhaohua and her mother, the Empress Dowager, both knew that giving birth for a woman was like walking through the gates of hell, so they kept very strict control over her pregnancy and delivery, fearing that someone would tamper with her during her pregnancy and delivery and murder her.
In fact, the Queen and Princess Zhaohua were right to be on guard. The biological mothers of those princes had all set their sights on this.
When it comes to political struggles, they may not have such keen political wisdom, but when it comes to palace fighting and house fighting, they are very experienced in their former lives. How many of them can give birth to sons and raise them safely?
In order to solve the obstacle of Princess Zhaohua for their sons, they all tacitly took action against the pregnant Princess Zhaohua.
The Queen and Princess Zhaohua were on high alert. In fact, the best time for Princess Zhaohua to become pregnant and give birth was before the Emperor ascended the throne. At that time, Princess Zhaohua had not yet come to the fore, and the princes did not regard her as a competitor. No one would have harmed her if she had become pregnant and given birth at that time.
But now that she is pregnant and has given birth to a child, there are many people who want to kill her.
But pregnancy is not something you can get if you want to. Princess Zhaohua herself did not expect that the timing would be so unfortunate. She could only work with the Queen to take the best possible protective measures.
Princess Zhaohua is now able to compete successfully with several princes and has a slight upper hand. The power in her hands is naturally extraordinary. With the help of her mother, the queen who is the master of the harem, Princess Zhaohua has managed her princess mansion so well that it is like an iron barrel that is impenetrable.
Princess Zhaohua would send people to seize the families of all the servants who were able to get close to her. No matter what, these servants would not dare to accept bribes from others and risk the whole clan being killed.
This is especially true for the imperial physician and midwife who were involved in her delivery. The entire family was being watched by people sent by Princess Zhaohua. Anyone who seemed to have any unknown forces approaching would be strictly investigated to ensure that not even the slightest risk was taken.
Under such strict precautions, the concubines and princes in the harem could only secretly make voodoo dolls and pray that Princess Zhaohua would have a difficult delivery.
As for praying for Princess Zhaohua to give birth to a daughter or something... Even Princess Zhaohua herself is a girl and she can participate in the fight for the throne, so it doesn't matter whether the heir she gives birth to is a boy or a girl.
So after ten months of pregnancy, Princess Zhaohua gave birth to a daughter weighing 6.7 jin. The emperor was not disappointed at all. Instead, he was very pleased and named the newborn girl Minghu and conferred her the title of princess.
Now the names of the three generations of the emperor's grandchildren all start with the character "Ming", so this little girl also follows her ranking and has the character "Ming" in her name, which represents the emperor's attention.
The other character "Hu" is even more precious. The Hulian vessel is a noble ritual vessel used to hold millet and sorghum during sacrifices. Naming her "Hu" was an undisguised expression of the emperor's respect for his granddaughter.
It would be a joke to say that a newborn baby girl could be seen to have any natural beauty at this time. The reason why the emperor valued Princess Minghu so much was simply to show his respect for her mother, Princess Zhaohua, to his ministers.
The emperor's attitude was a weather vane for all civil and military officials, so more court officials sided with Princess Zhaohua.
Although many people felt that Princess Zhaohua's competition for the throne as a woman was simply a hen crowing at dawn, this did not prevent them from feeling that Princess Zhaohua, who was highly valued by the emperor, had a bright future, and they wanted to join the effort to gain the merit of following the emperor.
These people might be fence-sitters and not very loyal, but when they gather around Princess Zhaohua, they form a huge force. Princess Zhaohua becomes more and more powerful, suffocating the other princes.
After all, the difference in their brains is so huge that the emperor sometimes wants his sons to inherit the throne to avoid so much resistance, but his sons are too stupid and incompetent, and are completely controlled by the ministers around them and become their puppets.
Even in the fight for the throne, he couldn't suppress the ministers who supported him and handed over the dominant power. If he ascended the throne in the future, wouldn't he become a puppet emperor? Will the country be handed directly to powerful officials in the future?
Princess Zhaohua, on the contrary, held on to her power tightly. Even though many of her supporters included high-ranking officials, she did not lose her dominance. She was also able to balance the relationships among her ministers well and make everyone work together.
His ability to control his subordinates far surpassed that of other princes.
When Princess Minghu was four or five years old, she had already begun to show that she had inherited her mother's natural intelligence. At a young age, she was full of cunning knowledge and knew how to please her grandfather, the emperor, with sweet words. She was deeply favored by the emperor. It can be said that she grew up on the emperor's lap.
This was a treatment that even her mother, Princess Zhaohua, had never received. After all, when Princess Zhaohua was born, although the emperor was happy, he was just a prince who wanted to seize the throne. He was busy competing with his brothers all day long and had no time to pay attention to his daughter's growth.
But now that he is an emperor, he sits in the referee's seat and watches his children compete. Of course, he has the time and energy to pay attention to the growth of the next generation.
Princess Minghu, who inherited the talent of Princess Zhaohua, naturally caught the emperor's eye.
When Princess Minghu was five years old, the emperor personally taught her an education and was very happy that she showed intelligence that was no less than her mother's.
The emperor's biggest fear is that he will grow old and there will be no smart children to serve as his successor.
The emperor had deeply experienced the despair of his sons being all fools, so for the sake of the country, he decided to make his daughter the heir.
After the emperor ascended the throne, other princes and princesses were born, but these children were too young, and he was no longer young.
When he was fighting for the throne, the Sixth Prince used despicable means to compete with him and even sent people to assassinate him and poison him.
Although he avoided it many times, he was accidentally hit by one of the attacks. His body was not very strong and being an emperor was a very tiring job. It was difficult for him to rest and recuperate under the stress of exhaustion.
Therefore, the emperor had a rough idea of how much time he had left in his life.
These ten years are definitely not enough time for the princes and princesses to grow up after he ascends the throne. The emperor will not take this risk as the country is in a state of uncertainty with a young ruler.
On the other hand, Princess Zhaohua, after ten years or so, would be in her thirties, in the prime of her life, and would have the means and power to secure the throne. By that time, Princess Minghu had grown into a teenage girl, and it was possible to tell whether she would become a wise ruler in the future.
The emperor thought more and more about Princess Zhaohua.
The emperor's obvious inclination made Princess Zhaohua's advantage more and more obvious, so the other princes became desperate and frequently attacked Princess Zhaohua and Princess Minghu, using all kinds of despicable means such as assassination and poisoning. As long as the mother and daughter died, they, as princes, would have the opportunity to ascend to the throne.
But this touched the emperor's bottom line. The reason why the emperor was not in good health was because he was murdered by the despicable means of the Sixth Prince. As a result, now his sons have also learned the despicable means of his mortal enemy to deal with his favorite heir!
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