"Your Majesty, your mother was just joking with your mother back then. If you hadn't used two of them, your mother would have had them withdrawn." The Queen Mother hurriedly explained that now was not the time to fall out with the Emperor. The real thing to do was to find a way to save Concubine Cheng. As for the Emperor, she would leave it to him to deal with later.
"Oh, I was just joking with the Imperial Concubine, but I didn't expect that she couldn't take a joke and actually confessed to poisoning the Queen and the Prince. What should I do now?
According to the laws of the Qingyan Nation, murdering the Empress and the Prince is punishable by the death of all nine generations of the family. This puts the Emperor in a difficult position, as the law cannot be violated. The Emperor finally revealed a little of his purpose for today.
"Your Majesty, the imperial concubine must have been wrongly accused. She cannot be convicted, otherwise Your Majesty will be implicated." The empress dowager knew that the nine clans would be executed, and she could not escape. She could not let the emperor convict her.
"Mother, I am in a difficult situation as well. I am not afraid, after all, I am the ruler of a country, and I certainly cannot be implicated in the punishment. But I cannot bear to see your suffering." The emperor chatted with the empress dowager about this and that, and did not reveal his purpose for the time being.
"Your Majesty, please have pity on me. Why don't you just pretend that there is no confession from the imperial concubine? This way, no one will be implicated." The empress dowager stated her purpose.
"But, the sect rules cannot be violated, otherwise you will be beheaded.
"Let's just follow the clan rules and make public the fact that Concubine Cheng poisoned the empress and the prince, and punish all nine generations of her family. I will find a way to exonerate my mother, and I believe the ministers will understand." The emperor acted like he was thinking about the empress dowager, which made Zong Ling very upset. He really wanted to laugh. Why didn't he realize that his brother was so sinister?
"Your Majesty, do you really want to do this?" The Queen Mother saw that she could not persuade the Emperor, so she raised her voice and questioned the Emperor.
"Mother, please forgive me. The clan rules cannot be violated, and I don't want to wrong the empress and the emperor." The emperor said to the empress dowager in embarrassment.
"Your Majesty, just tell me what you want in exchange for letting the imperial concubine go." The empress dowager didn't want to pretend anymore and asked the emperor directly.
"Since my mother is no longer pretending, I will say this. I will banish Concubine Cheng to the cold palace, strip her of her title of Concubine, remove her from her position as Minister of History, and for six generations, will not be allowed to take the imperial examinations and serve as officials in the court. I hope the Queen Mother can go to guard the imperial mausoleum herself and give up the position of Queen Mother to my mother. In this way, I will pretend that nothing happened. The person who poisoned the Queen and the prince was Concubine Cheng's maid Zhu'er." The Emperor finally stated his purpose for today.
"Impossible, I would never give up the throne and let your mother be the empress dowager even if I die." The empress dowager was so angry that she wanted to strangle the emperor to death on the spot.
She regretted it! She regretted adopting the emperor. She should have let the princes bully them to death.
Now, they have adopted a poisonous snake that is going to bite them to death.
"Mother, you should look at these evidences before deciding whether to abdicate." The emperor took the evidence from Zong Ling and asked Eunuch Hong to hand it to the empress dowager.
The Queen Mother took a thick stack of papers and read through them one by one. These were all evidence of what her family had done. Some of them were secretly arranged by her guards, and were also found by the Emperor. When did the Emperor start the investigation?
This time the Empress Dowager really didn't want to negotiate. The Emperor had the evidence, and as long as it was made public, her family would be really finished. All nine clans, including her, would be executed. No, she couldn't let her family be extinct.
"If I agree with what the emperor said, will the emperor let my family go?" The empress dowager had to compromise in order to continue the incense of her family.
"My words are as good as gold. As long as the Queen Mother can ask to guard the imperial mausoleum and give up the throne to my mother, as long as she agrees to banish Concubine Cheng to the cold palace and as long as she dismisses the Minister of State, I will spare their lives." The emperor said with finality.
"Okay, I agree. Tomorrow, I will issue an imperial decree requesting to guard the imperial mausoleum.
I'm very curious, when did the Emperor start collecting evidence? The Queen Mother knew resistance was futile and could only compromise, but she couldn't understand why she hadn't noticed anything unusual when the Emperor had been living under her nose the whole time.
"When my brothers bullied me and my younger brother, when I saw my mother using the coffin-opening sticker on my mother, and when my mother adopted me, I swore a poisonous oath that I would make those who bullied me and my younger brother pay tenfold.
So I have always been well-behaved and obedient. I will do whatever my mother asks me to do, all for today." The emperor recalled his childhood experiences and felt that he was still soft-hearted today.
The Empress Dowager had impure motives in adopting him and his younger brother. Many times, the two brothers became scapegoats and almost died.
In fact, his two brothers were just pawns in the hands of the Queen Mother. Because the Queen Mother was cruel and ruthless, she caused many concubines to have miscarriages, which made her very hostile. Many concubines and their families began to hire people to assassinate the Queen Mother. After so many times, she set her sights on his two brothers, adopted them, and let the concubines know that the throne would belong to them in the future. Therefore, his two brothers were often assassinated by others.
The second purpose was that if the two brothers survived, she would find a way to make them emperors, and she would be the empress dowager, and then she would control the emperor and open the door for her family.
The Queen Mother was shocked by the Emperor's words, and she began to plan for herself.
She didn't stay for long. After knowing what she wanted, she returned to the Cining Palace.
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