On the first day of the first lunar month in the sixth year of the Longqing reign, Emperor Longqing, who had not appeared in public for almost half a year, finally went to the Huangji Hall to accept congratulations from his civil and military officials, as well as envoys from all over the world.
But his condition was not optimistic. Even from across the high golden platform, the ministers could see that the emperor looked haggard, with a sallow complexion and a look of excessive indulgence. However, it was not allowed to say anything unlucky on the first day of the Chinese New Year, so everyone could only reluctantly wish the emperor good health, as good as the sun and the moon.
But Longqing had no interest in the flattery of his ministers. He announced that all officials would be exempted from the banquet and only gave each person a New Year's money. Then he retired from the court with the help of Meng Chong.
After returning to the Qianqing Palace which he had not visited for a long time, he exempted himself from the congratulations from the concubines and eunuchs. He lay listlessly on the imperial couch, refusing to see anyone and not wanting to say a word.
It was not until the Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng came to ask for a meeting that he forced himself to cheer up and asked someone to call in Master Zhang.
Zhang Juzheng came for two reasons, one was to express gratitude. At the New Year's Day court session just now, Emperor Longqing issued an edict to promote Gao Gong to the position of Grand Secretary of Zhongji Hall, and to add him as the Prince's Grand Tutor and Young Lady, keeping his original positions.
Secondly, and most importantly, he represented all the officials to wish His Royal Highness the Crown Prince a happy new year. Normally, all the officials should go to the Wenhua Palace to wish the Crown Prince a happy new year after leaving the court, but the Crown Prince had not yet married and was living with Concubine Li in the Yikun Palace. Therefore, Emperor Longqing ordered that before the Crown Prince married, the Grand Secretary should represent all the officials to come to the Qianqing Palace to wish the Crown Prince a happy new year.
Normally, the Prime Minister should not be absent from such events. But the incident at the birthday banquet on the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month before the Lunar New Year made the Prime Minister feel ashamed. Not only did he criticize himself in public, but he also had to submit a petition to apologize afterwards, saying that he had failed to discipline his subordinates and brought shame to the court, and asked the emperor to allow the old minister to resign and return home.
Of course, Emperor Longqing had to issue an imperial decree to retain him, and even promoted him. But Gao, remembering the lesson of the cabinet crisis in the first year of Longqing, could not recall him with just an imperial decree, lest someone would call him shameless again.
Therefore, Lord Gao did not show up at the New Year's Day court meeting this time, and naturally he would not show up at this time.
"Master Zhang, have you not eaten yet? It's a good time for you to have breakfast with me." After Zhang Juzheng finished his greetings and took his seat, Longqing ordered Meng Chong, "Hurry up and serve the meal. Go and pick out the intestines of the donkey that was killed this morning and make a plate of large intestine sashimi for Master Zhang and I to enjoy. I don't trust other people's cooking skills. They make it too clean and it doesn't taste good."
"Your Majesty, please wait, the taste is guaranteed to be rich!" Meng Chong responded with a flushed face, rolled up his sleeves and went. Although he was an amateur at approving for the emperor, he was an expert at preparing donkey intestines. Back then, he won the favor of Emperor Longqing by making large intestine sashimi, and made a leap in his life from the Shangshenjian to the Silijian.
Zhang Juzheng secretly felt nauseous. The old Beijing taste was too strong. He could barely accept the stewed pork belly, but the large intestine sashimi was really... life-threatening.
At this time, the palace maid reported that the prince came to pay New Year's greetings to His Majesty.
The nine-year-old little fat boy has now become the Plath version of the little fat boy. Although Zhu Yijun is arrogant and domineering outside, he immediately becomes a well-behaved child once he enters the emperor's sight.
The prince first greeted his father meticulously, and then greeted Master Zhang respectfully.
Zhang Juzheng kowtowed to the prince on behalf of all officials, wishing him good health and academic success in the new year.
After the red tape was over, Longqing opened his arms and took the fat boy whom he hadn't seen for several months in his arms. He looked at him carefully and said, "Hey, why does this child still have dark circles under his eyes? Was he beaten too?"
Master Zhang, who was standing up with the help of a stool, felt an arrow hit his knee and almost fell to the ground again.
"No, who dares to touch me? I stayed up late to read comics..." The little fat man almost let it slip, and quickly changed his words: "Uh, I stayed up late to read, stayed up late to read."
"Oh, really?" Longqing was surprised. He married late and started studying in his teens, so his knowledge was poor and he thought studying was the most painful thing in the world. So he kept delaying the prince's marriage and study until the fat boy was nine years old. He could not stand the ministers' persistent entanglement and agreed to crown the prince in February this year and let him go to school in March.
I didn't expect that the little fat boy actually started to learn from here. When did the Zhu family have such a studious prince?
This aroused the interest of Emperor Longqing, who asked with a smile: "What are you reading so hard? Is it a comic book?"
"I am reading the Tongjian." Zhu Yijun replied seriously.
"Oh? Really?" Long Qing couldn't help but blush, thinking that he hadn't even read a few pages, and only heard some of them from the teachers when he was in the palace. "Why don't you start with "Hundred Family Names" or "Thousand Character Classic"? "
"My dear friend taught me to recite those when I was seven years old," the prince said proudly.
"Really? Uh, it seems so..." Longqing was surprised at first, then he remembered that Concubine Li mentioned this last year or the year before. The emperor was even more surprised and asked, "Have you read the Four Books?"
"My eldest friend said that after I get married, there will be well-educated Hanlin scholars who will teach me better than me, so I won't...what...take my place." Zhu Yijun scratched his cheek like a bun and said, "He also said that the Tongjian was written by the prime ministers in ancient times for the emperor and the prince. I should read it when I am young. Even if I don't understand the principles in it, it will be very useful in the future."
"Oh? Master Zhang told me the same thing back in the palace, right?" Longqing looked at Zhang Juzheng with increasing surprise and said, "I never thought that that damn servant, oh no, Feng Bao, would have such insight?"
"Eunuch Feng is well-educated and upright. He is an outstanding figure not only among the eunuchs but also in the court." Zhang Juzheng responded hurriedly.
"Well, he is indeed different from others." Long Qing nodded reluctantly.
"However, the Tongjian talks about military and national affairs, and the ways of being a monarch. Isn't it a bit early for Your Highness to read it now?" Zhang Juzheng changed the subject.
"I can understand it, it's quite interesting. If I really don't understand, I can ask my great companion." The prince said shamelessly.
"Oh, then how about I dare to test Your Highness?" Zhang Juzheng said with a faint smile.
"Okay." Longqing's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands and said to the prince: "If you can answer it, let Feng Bao continue to follow you. If you can't answer it, I will send him to the ancestral mausoleum, and you will wait obediently to go out to study."
"Come on, who's afraid of who?" The little fat boy was full of courage.
"Then may I ask Your Highness, what is the meaning of the first sentence of "Tongjian", 'Starting from Yong Sheti Ge, and ending with Xuan Xi Kun Dun'?" Zhang Juzheng asked.
"It means the period 'starting from the year of Wuyin and ending in the year of Renzi'." The prince answered without hesitation.
"Oh?" Longqing looked at Master Zhang in bewilderment. Seeing Zhang Juzheng nod, he couldn't help but praise him, "My son is really knowledgeable!"
In fact, this is just a mechanical conversion of Jupiter calendar to Ganzhi calendar. As the emperor's teacher, Zhang Juzheng knew that Emperor Longqing didn't know it. It was the most suitable way to make the emperor feel uneasy without being exposed.
"Then I wonder how far Your Highness has read?" Zhang Juzheng asked again.
"I just finished reading the weekly diary." The prince replied.
"Excuse me, Your Highness, 'I have heard that the duty of an emperor is nothing greater than propriety, propriety is nothing greater than division, and division is nothing greater than reputation', what do you mean by that?" Zhang Juzheng asked.
"I have heard that the most important duty of an emperor is to uphold rites and ethics, the most important thing in rites and ethics is to distinguish between different positions, and the most important thing in distinguishing between different positions is to correct one's status." Zhu Yijun answered fluently.
Zhang Juzheng then asked some famous sayings from the weekly diary, such as "Only names and tools cannot be lent to others" and "A sage's use of people is like a carpenter's use of wood." The prince explained them one by one and it seemed that he had thoroughly understood these contents under Feng Bao's teaching.
This made Zhang Juzheng admire him immensely and he said: "Your Highness the Crown Prince is truly a genius! This is a blessing for our Ming Dynasty. Of course, Eunuch Feng is also very competent as the Crown Prince's enlightenment teacher."
"Yeah." Longqing's face, which had been very gloomy, finally showed a smile. The emperor was very pleased and said, "I originally planned to let Feng Bao go after the New Year, but considering his contribution to teaching the prince, I will keep him for now. But since he is so good at teaching the prince, I will let him accompany the prince to study and stay out of other people's business. Let's let someone else take care of the Imperial Stables."
The last sentence was addressed to Meng Chong who had just returned from serving the meal.
Meng Chong quickly responded, saying that he would do it when he got back. Although he did not see Feng Bao fall as he wished, taking away his military power was a great way to put a stop to his arrogance.
It was a completely bad move for Gao to let a cook be the internal minister. After all, how could a cook have any bad intentions, right?
~~
Emperor Longqing praised the prince highly again. Knowing that the child was not used to eating large intestine sashimi, he rewarded him with a set of donkey meat hot pot and asked him to take it back to eat.
When Zhu Yijun came out of the Qianqing Palace, Eunuch Feng, with an anxious look on his face, came out of the tiger cave outside.
"How is it, Prince? Did His Majesty praise you?"
"Of course, I also told you to concentrate on playing with me in the future and not worry about the Imperial Stables." The prince said proudly, "I have kept my promise. What did you promise me?"
"Do it, do it, do it all!" Eunuch Feng heaved a sigh of relief upon hearing this, and nodded happily, "Cartoons, Coke, popcorn, as much as you want, and never let the queen know."
Because the prince was overweight, the imperial concubine ordered him to eat less snacks and not to stay in the warm room watching movies all day, so she ordered Feng Bao to put away all these bad things.
Little did he know that if the prince was left to his own devices, he would probably get bored of it in a few years. After all, compared with the current happiness of a fat otaku, it is simply not worth mentioning.
But since the Imperial Concubine banned it, the Crown Prince’s addiction has become unstoppable... Feng Bao was like holding his ass.
"I also want a green snake and a white snake doll!" The prince glared at Feng Bao and reminded him, "A life-size doll to sleep with me!"
"This..." Feng Bao was embarrassed at first. If the imperial concubine knew that the prince slept with a big long insect in his arms every night, would there be any benefit for him?
Seeing that the prince was about to change his expression, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and nodded: "Oh, okay!"
At worst, I can just hide it in the morning and show it to the prince at night. If the queen finds it, she can say it's hers...
"Hurry back." Zhu Yijun sat on Feng Bao's back, gnawing on donkey meat and urging him, "I can't wait to watch this year's New Year's film!"
"Hey, hey." Feng Bao struggled to carry the heavy prince on his back and went back to Yikun Palace tremblingly.
But he was in a very happy mood, and he would thank Mr. Zhao later for helping him overcome this difficult time.
Mr. Zhao and his son-in-law are the great benefactors of our family!
p.s. I will write one more update.
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