Chapter 260 My biased mother wants me to adopt my younger brother’s son!
The emperor was a very decisive person. Since he had already decided to make the most outstanding Princess Zhaohua the heir, after making the decision, he directly issued an imperial decree to enthrone Princess Zhaohua as the crown princess. He did not drag his feet and let Princess Zhaohua continue to compete with her brothers for the throne in the name of a test.
After all, Princess Zhaohua's identity as a woman is indeed a disadvantage. There has never been a precedent in the history of this world for a woman to be the crown prince. The emperor knows that he cannot firmly support Princess Zhaohua, so it will be even more difficult for Princess Zhaohua to take power.
In order to prevent the situation from going downhill, the emperor, after making up his mind, stood firmly and resolutely behind Princess Zhaohua, and personally dispersed all the supporting forces behind the other princes. He also conferred the title of prince on several princes and drove them out of the court, leaving them to be rich and idle kings.
The reason why they were not conferred the title of prince was that Princess Zhaohua would be allowed to show favor to them after she ascended the throne as empress.
Regardless of whether these princes would be grateful to Princess Zhaohua after being promoted to princes in the future, at least in the eyes of the world, Princess Zhaohua was willing to promote them to princes regardless of past grudges, which was the utmost kindness for them. If they dared to harbor dissatisfaction or rebel, they would be ungrateful traitors who had never stood on the side of justice from the beginning, and the success rate of their rebellion would naturally be extremely low.
The emperor was very considerate of Princess Zhaohua.
The biological mothers of these princes were also demoted and confined by the emperor. They were under strict surveillance and had no way of contacting their own people to do anything.
The emperor personally took action, which was a natural dimensionality reduction attack on the princes and concubines.
With the emperor's support, Princess Zhaohua was canonized as the Crown Princess. There was almost no opposition because all the court officials who might oppose this matter were sentenced in advance by the emperor and driven out of the court.
After seeing the lessons learned from the previous incident, the remaining officials did not dare to speak out in opposition even if they were dissatisfied.
The enthronement of Princess Zhaohua as the Crown Princess went smoothly, and the enthronement ceremony was even more grand than the formal enthronement of the Crown Prince. After all, this was the first Crown Princess of the dynasty, and the Emperor ordered a grand enthronement ceremony, not wanting to let his beloved daughter down. So he added some specifications here and made it more grand there, and in the end, the enthronement ceremony of the Crown Princess was even better than that of the Crown Prince.
Now that the Crown Princess has been appointed, Princess Zhaohua is the legitimate heir to the throne of the dynasty. She also enjoys the trust and respect of the Emperor. She openly builds up her own team in the East Palace, and her power grows day by day.
Because of the issue of enthroning the Crown Princess, more and more noble families requested that their legitimate daughter be made the Crown Princess, and it also became more and more common for ordinary people to establish their own female households and have women be the heads of the family.
The number of women taking the imperial examinations gradually increased.
Although the majority of the successful candidates were still men, the passing rate of women who took the imperial examination was extremely high, with almost half of them successfully becoming Jinshi.
Because these women dared to take part in the imperial examinations, they were all knowledgeable and mature. Unlike men, taking the imperial examinations was a common thing for them. As women taking the imperial examinations, they would be subject to various pressures, including others' contempt for their gender and strange looks at them for taking the imperial examinations. These pressures made them want to pass the examinations more than the men who took the examinations, and they worked harder and were more cautious. If they were not absolutely sure, they would not dare to take a try easily.
If a man failed the imperial examination, he would only be comforted and advised to keep trying and try again next time.
However, if a woman fails the imperial examination, she will be brainwashed: women are not good at studying, women should not take the imperial examination, and if she fails, she should recognize herself, go home and prepare to get married, and take care of her husband and children.
Therefore, the female candidates who were able to take part in the imperial examination and reach the final two stages of the joint examination and palace examination were all talented women with strong character and confidence.
After successfully entering the civil service, these talented women would naturally join the ranks of the Crown Princess. They naturally support Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess, who represents women in power, and are her most loyal supporters.
The Crown Princess did trust the female officials more, because the male officials served her for the benefit of serving the emperor. They were loyal to the crown prince, and if another prince became the crown prince, they would change their ways.
But the female officials are different. They are loyal to her because she is the highest representative of women in power. Her existence is a banner for all independent and self-reliant women. If another prince were the crown prince, he would definitely not be willing to use these female officials, and might even want to take them into the harem. As long as they still have ambitions in their political careers, they will absolutely support the Crown Princess' rule unconditionally.
As more and more female officials entered the officialdom through the imperial examination, the power of the Crown Princess grew stronger and stronger.
If women have influence in the court, it is natural that this influence will gradually spread to the army.
The Crown Princess formed an army of women. Under Si Yuan's advice, she did not naively mix female soldiers with male soldiers. After all, women did not have a high status in that era. Even if there was a Crown Princess, if female soldiers were mixed with male soldiers in a place like a military camp, there might be a scandal of male soldiers breaking into the female soldiers' tents.
It would be better to train male and female soldiers separately, send them to the battlefield separately, and have female generals command the female soldiers and male generals command the male soldiers.
Women are naturally weaker than men in terms of physical fitness, but after Si Yuan came up with a training method, as long as these female soldiers are willing to train hard, the upper limit of their strength improvement is no worse than that of male soldiers.
Just like in the world of cultivation and the world of advanced technology, the status of men and women will gradually become equal, because in the ancient society without cultivation and technology, the fundamental reason for the superiority of men over women is that men are naturally physically stronger than women, and men have a natural advantage over women in labor, physical work, and martial arts.
But in the world of cultivation, the aptitude for cultivation is not divided between men and women. After cultivation, the natural difference in physical fitness between men and women can be easily eliminated by cultivation. Everyone only looks at the level of cultivation, not the gender.
The same is true in a technologically advanced world. With advanced technology, the demand for physical strength and force is very low. Many physical tasks can be done by technological products. Women's physical disadvantages are compensated, and their status naturally rises.
The training method provided by Siyuan can be practiced by both female and male soldiers. As long as they are willing to endure hardships, they will be able to achieve results. The upper limit of female soldiers is no lower than that of male soldiers. After the natural physical fitness advantages of male soldiers are eliminated, the status of both sides depends on their strength and combat records.
The Crown Princess was extremely surprised by this, and from then on she became more dependent on Si Yuan, the Duke of Chengguo.
However, Si Yuan has gradually planned to withdraw from the court and let Ning Fu and the third generation Ning Xi come to the fore.
After giving birth to Ning Xi, Ning Fu never had any more children. She picked up the Four Books and Five Classics, which she had studied for a while, and other books needed for the imperial examination.
Ning Fu was a talented woman who was proficient in music, chess, calligraphy and painting. However, as a woman she did not have the qualifications to take the imperial examinations, so she basically did not read books related to the examinations.
It was not until later when her mother Cheng gave birth to her younger brother Yuanger that Ning Fu began to study the Four Books and Five Classics in order to enlighten her younger brother Yuanger.
However, after Yuan Ge'er drowned, she stopped studying.
Now that women were able to take the imperial examinations, Ning Fu naturally picked up her old books and continued studying, because she also wanted to take the imperial examinations and become an official.
Originally, Ning Fu could have relied on Si Yuan's influence to become an official, but she was proud and didn't want to be seen as someone who got in through the back door. She wanted to rely on her own abilities to become an official, stand upright in the court, and let everyone know that women are as good as men. So what if her father didn't have a son? As a daughter, she can do better than her son.
Ning Fu has a ruthless nature. She is determined to learn until she dies, which makes her husband Lin Chengqi feel ashamed and inferior to him.
Ning Fu finally passed the imperial examination successfully and won the second-class Jinshi.
After learning that Ning Fu had passed the imperial examination, Cheng burst into tears of joy amid the congratulations.
She never thought that she would be so happy today.
The despair and pain she had felt because of not being able to give birth to a son, and because she had no hope after her son's death, seemed to be things of her past life.
Cheng was only proud of her daughter.
Even Cheng's family members praised her: "You really gave birth to a good daughter. Who said that having a daughter is not as good as having a son? Having such an outstanding daughter is really more joyful than having ten or eight sons."
Cheng's elder brother and sister-in-law both looked envious. Of course they were envious, because although they had three sons, none of them was successful. Only the eldest son was brought up strictly by them, and he passed the examination to become a scholar, but he could never pass the examination to become a juren.
Not to mention the remaining second son and youngest son, who were spoiled and couldn't bear the hardship of studying.
They can't even bear the hardship of studying, let alone the hardship of practicing martial arts. It is estimated that they can only be idle rich people who live a life of idleness and wait for death in the future. It is impossible to expect them to have a bright future.
In the past, they had worried about their younger sister Cheng, thinking that since she had lost her son, the adopted son in the future would not be her biological son, and her life in her old age might not be easy.
But they didn't expect that the clown was actually themselves.
Although Cheng had no sons and only a daughter, this daughter was better and more filial than their three sons. In particular, this daughter gave Cheng a granddaughter, Ning Xi, who was also very outstanding.
Cheng's elder brother and sister-in-law were so envious and jealous that their eyes were red.
Cheng's eyes were filled with tears as she smiled so hard that she could hardly close her mouth: "This is all due to Fu'er's own efforts! Fu'er loves studying the most. She couldn't take the imperial examinations before, but now that she can, she just went down to try. Unexpectedly, she actually passed the exam and became a Jinshi..."
Cheng's Versailles made those around him who heard what he said even more jealous.
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