Chapter 97 The fake prince ascends the throne as emperor!
Shufei has been with the emperor for so many years, and she has gotten to know the emperor's temperament a little bit. That is, he is a monarch who values imperial power and likes to play a balancing act. Whether a concubine in the harem is favored or not depends on whether her family background can be appreciated by the emperor.
Either she is the emperor's cousin like the imperial concubine and has the support of the empress dowager, forcing the emperor to favor her; or she is like other concubines, with capable fathers and brothers and powerful family influence, forcing the emperor to give her face and favor her.
As for those concubines who have no family background and want to win the emperor's favor, they must have stunning beauty or unique qualities to please the emperor.
However, concubines with poor family backgrounds are likely to fall out of favor and be bullied by other concubines with good family backgrounds, and the emperor will not uphold justice for them.
It can be said that if one wants to live a comfortable and happy life in today's harem, family background comes first. If one has a good family background, even if one makes a mistake, there will be basically no punishment as long as it is not serious enough for the emperor to tolerate.
Concubine Shu was very grateful for her strong family background, which allowed her to sit firmly on the position of the first-rank Concubine Shu and give birth to the second prince.
However, Concubine Shu also knew that the better her family background, the more the emperor would be afraid of the second prince she gave birth to.
The emperor is the kind of person who doesn't value concubines with bad family backgrounds, but is also wary of concubines with good family backgrounds.
This is just for concubines, and it is even more so for the princes. The emperor is wary of those princes whose maternal families are powerful. This can be seen from the fact that his favorite is the fifth prince, whose maternal family has almost no power.
It can be said that the Fifth Prince's position as Crown Prince depends on the Emperor's favor. Once the Emperor no longer trusts the Fifth Prince, those court officials who have pledged their loyalty to him as the crown prince because of the Emperor's favor will also leave him.
This is why Concubine Shu thought it would not be difficult for her son to dethrone the Crown Prince.
What is the emperor’s favor? That is like the unpredictable day of June, which will never last long. Only the family background of true loyalists is the foundation for long-term support.
Concubine Shu told the Second Prince her thoughts in detail, and the Second Prince listened with half-belief and half-doubt: "Is it true that Duke Ying was loyal to the Fifth Prince because of our father?"
But why did he hear that his father valued the Duke of England so much, and that the Duke of England held the military power, and that his father could not take this military power back?
Will the Duke of England, who is so domineering even towards his father, willingly support the Crown Prince just because of an instruction from his father?
As soon as the second prince had this thought, he quickly suppressed it.
It must have been his father’s instruction that the Duke of England chose to support the Crown Prince.
It can't be that the Duke of England thinks that the Crown Prince is a wise leader and voluntarily supports him, right?
The second prince would rather believe that the emperor favors the prince than believe that it was the prince who won over the Duke of England on his own.
Concubine Shu didn't know the tangle in the Second Prince's heart. She was very happy at this moment: "The Imperial Concubine has failed this time. My son has done a great job. The First Prince can't compete with you at all. Don't worry, my son. Even if the Queen Mother is here this time, I will not let Concubine Chen, no, Concubine Chen, have another chance to turn things around!"
The fight between Concubine Shu and Concubine Chen was a fight in the harem.
Concubine Shu had no intention of dragging her own son into this, and the Second Prince was only focused on fighting the First Prince in the front court, so she safely left the harem to his mother.
The Second Prince kept a low profile for the time being as instructed by Concubine Shu. After all, the Second Prince had just been scolded by the Emperor, so it was naturally not appropriate for him to jump around to show off his presence.
The people of the eldest prince's faction were in a miserable state. During this period of time, they had to endure the emperor's wrath almost every morning at the court session.
The Chen family, in particular, was subjected to violent suppression and reprimands from the emperor, and even the title of Duke Cheng'en was stripped by the furious emperor.
The emperor directly ordered the prince to arrest all the criminals in the Chen family and imprison them without mercy, and to punish the Chen family with just cause.
Of course, it was impossible for the emperor to punish the Chen family on the grounds that they colluded with the eldest prince to seize the throne. After all, in addition to the Chen family and the eldest prince, several other princes vying for the throne and their mother's families were also doing the same thing.
If this were stated openly, it would indeed be a serious crime, but the emperor knew that the unspoken rule of this kind of fight for the throne was that it could not be made public.
The emperor could only deal with the Chen family on the grounds that they had committed a crime. Except for the young female members of the Chen family, almost all the men and the wives of the housekeepers had committed murder. They sold official positions, took over lawsuits, lent money at high interest rates, annexed land, seized people's property, and robbed women... There was almost no bad thing they did not do.
Zhou Xi took this opportunity to put all the criminals in the Chen family into jail, not letting any of them go and not showing any leniency.
However, Zhou Xi knew that if he put the evidence of the Chen family's persecution of civilians in front of the emperor, the emperor would only think that it was not a crime. After all, the Chen family was his maternal family. How could it be a crime for the emperor's maternal family to oppress a few untouchables?
Then, perhaps at the request of Empress Dowager Chen, it was raised high again and then gently put down.
Zhou Xi was unwilling to let this group of evil people who oppressed the people get away with it, so the evidence he showed to the emperor was how the Chen family provided huge amounts of benefits to the eldest prince and how they poached the emperor's supporters in order to support the eldest prince to become the new emperor.
With Zhou Xi's slight manipulation of the evidence, the Chen family's support for the eldest prince in his bid for the throne turned into support for the eldest prince to ascend the throne.
On the surface it seems to be one thing, but in fact it is completely different. The eldest prince is competing for the position of crown prince. So in the emperor's view, the eldest prince and the Chen family want to dethrone the crown prince Zhou Xi, so he, the emperor, can still sit back and enjoy the throne.
But if the Chen family supports the eldest prince to ascend the throne, then that would be a direct attack on the emperor himself. With the emperor's sensitive and suspicious nature, how could he not be furious?
This was about the throne under his own ass. Not to mention his mother's family, even his own mother, Empress Dowager Chen, was useless. The emperor blurted out in anger: "Kill! Kill all these damned traitors!"
The emperor even openly expressed his murderous intention towards the Chen family at the morning court session, leaving all the civil and military officials dumbfounded.
It was the emperor who protected the Chen family before, and it is also the emperor who wants to kill the Chen family now. What heinous crime did the Chen family commit to anger the emperor?
No one thought that the emperor was so furious and wanted to kill the Chen family because they supported the eldest prince. After all, it was not the first day that the emperor knew that the Chen family supported the eldest prince, and the eldest prince was born to a girl from the Chen family. As the eldest prince's maternal family, isn't it normal for the Chen family to support the eldest prince?
But what they didn't expect was that the Chen family was also the emperor's maternal family. In the emperor's view, the Chen family's support for the eldest prince to ascend the throne meant that his maternal family had betrayed him.
How could the emperor tolerate betrayal? Not to mention the Chen family, even the Queen Mother Chen who went to the Emperor to plead for mercy was scolded by the Emperor: "The Chen family is indeed the most important thing in your heart. As for me, I am just a tool for you to maintain the wealth and glory of the Chen family. Even my eldest son is probably the next tool you choose. But mother, I am not even broken yet, are the Chen family so impatient to find a new tool to replace me?"
Empress Dowager Chen was almost scared to death by the emperor's sarcastic words. Although she valued the wealth and glory of the Chen family, the most important thing in her heart was her son, the emperor.
In addition to the mother-son relationship, the most important thing is that Empress Dowager Chen understood that the reason she could be so glorious was because her own son was the emperor.
She supported the eldest prince to be the next emperor, but she only supported him to be the crown prince. She had absolutely no intention of letting the eldest prince replace the emperor and ascend the throne as soon as possible!
Although the eldest prince was the grandson of her biological son and niece, Empress Dowager Chen knew clearly that it was completely different for a grandson to be an emperor than for a son to be an emperor. In the future, her grandson would have a biological mother to be filial to, so what would she, a grandmother who was one level removed from her, mean? It would be the same even if the grandson’s biological mother was her niece.
Empress Dowager Chen had a clear idea of which was more important, the Chen family or the emperor's son.
Empress Dowager Chen just wanted to let her grandson, who had Chen family blood, become the next emperor without affecting her own son, so as to better guarantee the future wealth of the Chen family. There is absolutely no intention of the emperor using his son as a tool for the Chen family to gain wealth and glory as he said!
Empress Dowager Chen wanted to explain, but the emperor's attitude was "I don't want to listen, I don't want to listen". Empress Dowager Chen wanted to continue to plead. After all, the Chen family was her maternal family. She couldn't let the emperor really kill her maternal family, right? Even if you lose wealth and glory, at least you're still alive.
The emperor said: I knew that my mother only had her family in her heart and not me!
Empress Dowager Chen: ...The Emperor's son is such a bastard. He just said he wouldn't listen, but now he is listening? Do you still have the mind to confront your own mother?
Empress Dowager Chen was also angry. She just wanted to save the lives of her family members, not to threaten the emperor's throne. Did the emperor have to be so stubborn with her?
As a woman who gave birth to a son like the emperor, Empress Dowager Chen was not a very good person. She cried, made a scene and threatened to hang herself in front of the emperor: "I am so miserable. I just wanted to ask for a way out for my family, but the emperor wouldn't allow it. My son is so unfilial, so what's the point of me still living?"
The emperor was so frightened that he immediately gave in: "Mother... I will listen to you and release the man!"
Not to mention that the emperor and Empress Dowager Chen had supported each other and had a deep relationship with her son, the world was ruled by filial piety. If the people of the world knew that he, the emperor, forced his mother to hang herself in order to kill his uncle's family, he would probably be cursed by all the people.
The emperor had no choice but to agree to the empress dowager's request to let the Chen family go.
But the emperor was still threatened and was unwilling to restore the title of Duke Cheng'en to the Chen family.
Empress Dowager Chen also decided to stop while she was ahead. After all, with her around, no one dared to bully the Chen family. There might be a chance that the title of Duke Cheng'en would be restored in the future.
After the quarrel, Empress Dowager Chen calmed down and then spoke earnestly to the emperor: "Emperor, you and I are mother and son. You are a piece of my beloved flesh and blood. How could I treat you as a tool? I entered the palace when I was only sixteen years old. I have been in the harem of the previous emperor for many years. You are my only child. I raised you and watched you marry, have children and ascend the throne. Compared with you, my parents have passed away long ago, and I am not very close to my brother and sister-in-law. How can they be as important as you? It's just that I think you are the emperor, I am the queen dowager, and the Chen family is my mother's family. It doesn't matter if I take care of them a little and give them some wealth and glory, but no matter how much I care about the Chen family, they are never as important as you. We are mother and son!"
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