"Second brother, I don't care what you want to do. Except for your wife, everyone else in your house was taken in by you. Even your concubine was personally selected by the Queen. Are you questioning the princess I chose for you and saying that I am old and my choices are not good, or are you doubting your mother's ability to choose people?"
"Take a good look at your own house. It's a mess like a sieve, full of holes. How dare you blame your brother? Today, I'll let you off the hook for the sake of your health. If you do it again, don't blame me for being ruthless."
After the emperor finished speaking, he left and returned to the imperial study, leaving the second prince dumbfounded. This was not the result he had expected. He did not expect that the current emperor still trusted the prince so much. It made him hate him so much that his teeth were itching. His mother was also the queen, and he was also the legitimate son.
Why can't I fight for that position? Why was my eldest brother born as the crown prince? Why? Is it because he is the legitimate son of the Empress?
The second prince didn’t understand why the emperor was so partial. It was obviously the crown prince who was the emperor, but he still favored the crown prince. Was it just because he was not the son of Empress Yuan?
The raging anger in the second prince's eyes burned his reason. He no longer wanted to think about anything and wanted the emperor to make the decision. He now wanted to be the emperor himself. Who doesn't want to hold real power?
Perhaps only by becoming the emperor can he force the prince to hand over the antidote to his poison. If he relies solely on that biased old man, he will probably never get the antidote in this lifetime.
The Second Prince knew full well that even if the Emperor hated the Crown Prince, he would not depose him. He had even severely punished the Empress after the Crown Prince's three legitimate children were born, though he had kept the Crown Prince in the dark. But what was the basis for this? His mother, the Empress, was clearly already the Empress, yet she was still being held captive by a dead man. If he became Emperor, he would tear that vile Empress's corpse into pieces, scattering her bones and ash.
Although he was already dead, he still controlled all the emperor's thoughts. He really shouldn't have let him die so easily. He shouldn't have tortured her and then killed him. Otherwise, the hatred in his heart would be difficult to dispel.
The prince began to read the memorials in the imperial study. These local officials were really spoiled by the emperor. Instead of writing down the problems found in various places, they only cared about singing the praises of the current emperor. They compared the current emperor to a tyrant monarch and the court officials under him became villains who fawned on the emperor.
Sometimes I want to laugh when I read some memorials. It is obvious that those natural disasters and man-made disasters can no longer be covered up, but they still try their best to whitewash it. I want the emperor to see a peaceful and prosperous era.
The prince picked out those memorials praising the emperor's merits one by one and put them aside. These were specifically for the emperor to read. He really couldn't bear to read them. The prince specifically looked at those memorials that described the disaster situation and how the refugees were arranged. In addition, there were those memorials to places where the court had clearly sent people to deliver disaster relief silver, but the local officials did not receive it and still submitted memorials to the court requesting disaster relief.
The prince actually knew that there was something fishy going on here, but he didn't expect these people to be so bold and presumptuous. They were so bold that even the local officials didn't receive a single cent of the disaster relief money, and they just embezzled it all.
Even if the emperor saw these memorials, he would not take them seriously, so the prince did not even hand them to him and handled them himself.
The prince carefully looked at the imperial envoys sent for disaster relief. Most of them were disciples of the Prime Minister's Office, the second prince's wife's family, and the people working under the second prince.
Looking at these people, it seemed that the Second Prince and the Prime Minister had joined forces, otherwise they would not have kept it secret so well. The Crown Prince closed his eyes, allowing his thoughts to calm down. Although he was gentle, he was not a good person. What he discovered today would definitely implicate him.
The Second Prince had calculated that he would not fail to save the Crown Princess, nor would he let the people in the Prime Minister's Office fall, so he deliberately dragged the people in the Eastern Palace into the water.
The emperor glanced at the prince who was handling the case, the memorials he had selected, and the memorials he was approving. The emperor understood in his heart that the prince's current thinking was that there were man-made disasters and natural disasters happening everywhere, so how much silver and food could the court send for disaster relief?
King Cheng said that huge stone balls of extremely high temperature would fall every month, destroying all the newly built gatehouses and tile houses. The weather was even drier, and the fields had no harvest. Now it was difficult to get water in the north, as it was like a bottomless pit. Floods occurred in the south of the Yangtze River, and the rain kept falling, as if there was a hole in the sky. There was so much rain that people could not live a normal life. The fields and houses were also washed away, and now the people could only hide in the mountains to avoid the heavy rain.
Jiangnan is clearly a place with singing birds and fragrant flowers, but now the people are living in dire straits because of the floods. People are dying everywhere, and refugees are running around, and they cannot be stopped at all. Now there is no place that has not been affected by the disaster.
Even Qiongdao and Yazhou are experiencing constant riots. Ningguta and other areas in the remote north are also suffering from horrific droughts. Some say that the land has cracked due to the sun, which is simply alarmist.
There is a severe drought in the north, floods in the south, and hail and light snow have fallen continuously in the remote northwest and southeast areas. But it is already June, and normally the seedlings should have grown a lot taller by now. In those places where it is snowing and hail, crops cannot grow at all.
Although the emperor was unreliable, he did have information channels. He just didn't think the situation was serious. He just thought these people wanted to cry poor to him.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
