First of all, about the story of "The Legend of Zhen Huan", I don't know if you noticed a small detail. That is, after the emperor and Zhen Huan met in Ganlu Temple, they initially did not want Zhen Huan to return to the palace because of the queen's assertion that "Wei Yueyan rushed to the moon". Something happened next, which led to the Queen Mother and the Emperor agreeing to let Zhen Huan return to the palace.
The cause of the incident was that Shen Meizhuang accidentally learned that the fourth elder brother's soup was poisoned and attempted to kill the fourth elder brother.
She immediately reported the incident to the Empress Dowager, who summoned the emperor. The two decided to allow Zhen Huan to return to the palace, with the purpose of protecting the fourth elder brother.
Subsequently, the emperor canonized Zhen Huan as Concubine Xi and asked her to assist in the management of the affairs of the six palaces, and she was on a par with the queen in the harem. Isn't the intention behind all this to use her power to protect the fourth elder brother?
The emperor asked Zhen Huan to return to the palace at this specific time, and there may also be thoughts of wanting to use her.
As for the biological mother of the fourth elder brother, it is a palace maid named Li Jingui. At that time, when the emperor was still a prince, he had a relationship with her.
This incident was blamed by the emperor and almost caused the emperor to lose his throne. Therefore, the emperor thinks that the fourth elder brother is a shadow in his life, and he is not to be seen.
After Zhen Huan left the palace, once the emperor met the fourth elder brother outside the broken jade xuan, and the two missed Guan Niangniang together. After that, the emperor ordered someone to take the fourth elder brother back to the palace from the Old Summer Palace.
Since Zhen Huan left Ganlu Temple, the queen's influence in the harem has grown stronger and stronger. With no rivals around her, her ambitions gradually swelled.
She not only forced Concubine Qi to a dead end, but also contributed to the third elder brother becoming her biological son. In order to ensure that the third elder brother firmly sat on the throne of the crown prince, she conspired to make Ye Lan fall into infertility, and also tried to exclude the fourth elder brother from the crown prince's succession with poison.
With the escalation of the queen's schemes, her attitude towards the queen mother has also changed dramatically. When the two quarreled, the queen repeatedly mentioned the name "Long Keduo", which seemed to regard the queen mother's heart as a blade.
In order to prevent Zhen Huan from returning to the palace and verify the statement of "Dangerous Moon Yan Chongyue", she even disregarded the safety of the Queen Mother and personally planned the "water walking" accident in Shoukang Palace. This series of actions made the Queen Mother deeply realize that there was no rival in the harem who could match the queen.
The fourth elder brother became the last straw that crushed the Queen Mother's patience. Although the fourth elder brother has a low status, after all, he is the emperor's biological son and the queen mother's own grandson. Previously, because the queen deliberately caused the concubine to miscarry, the queen mother had punished her and made her think about it at the gate of the temple.
In the eyes of the Queen Mother, no matter how humble the status of the fourth elder brother is, he is her grandson after all, and the emperor does not have many sons. Therefore, the Queen Mother was naturally willing to protect him. In order to welcome Zhen Huan back to the palace, the emperor thought of an unbelievable way - to let the fourth elder brother recognize Zhen Huan as his mother. Although this seems quite ridiculous, the age difference between the two is so great that it is simply self-defeating. But the Queen Mother didn't object, she was also eager to let the fourth elder brother have one more mother to take care of him.
Therefore, both the queen mother and the emperor agreed to take Zhen Huan back, enhance her prestige, give her the surname Gao, and list the fourth elder brother as her son. In fact, the emperor's move was also to balance the power of the harem.
Zhen Huan herself understands this. After returning to the palace, the Queen Mother has been testing her to see if she has enough strength to compete with the Empress. Zhen Huan skillfully used brown rice barley soup to consolidate her position, dispelling the Queen Mother's doubts about her, thereby enhancing the strength of Zhen Huan's team.
In fact, the emperor had already reminded the empress that his favorite was the fourth elder brother. It's just that at that time, Yi Xiu hadn't understood the emperor's intentions!
The emperor enhanced Zhen Huan's prestige, gave her the surname Niu Hulu, and asked the fourth elder brother to respect her as his mother. At that time, the empress questioned the fourth elder brother's lowly background, and the emperor responded:
The emperor's words obviously hinted that if he didn't have high hopes for the fourth elder brother, why would he care so much about his background?It is precisely because the fourth elder brother is not from an illusory background that the emperor wants to find a mother with a high status for him, paving the way for the fourth elder brother to establish a prince in the future, which can also make people unable to discuss it.
The reason why the Queen Mother and the Emperor dared to let Zhen Huan be the mother of the fourth elder brother was because Zhen Huan's family was exiled, and there was no strong force behind them, and there was no possibility of relatives taking power, so it was relatively easy to control.
At this time, Zhen Huan was pregnant, and neither the emperor nor the queen mother knew whether her future child would be male or female. In order for Zhen Huan to balance the queen, she needs to enhance her strength, and the fourth elder brother, as the prince, is undoubtedly her most powerful bargaining chip.
In this world, there is no love without a cause. At the beginning, because of the astrological theory, the emperor threw Zhen Huan, who was pregnant with Liujia, to Lingyun Peak, and then in order to support Zhen Huan, he provoked her banner, gave her a surname, named her a concubine, and rewarded a son.
Zhen Huan just smartly pushed the boat down the river and seized that opportunity. And this opportunity happened to be given by her rival queen.
When Yi Xiu passed on to the third elder brother, he probably thought like this: The fourth elder brother's biological mother has a low status and is disliked by the emperor. What is the use of such a child, no matter how smart and hard he is?He is not the emperor's sister-in-law, nor is he the eldest son, he still grew up outside the palace, so what is the chance to inherit the throne?The emperor didn't abolish him just because he had royal blood, how could a concubine become a child of the Ulanala clan?
The third elder brother is different, although he is stupid, he is the eldest son, even if he can't take on big responsibilities, he is better than being well-behaved and obedient. After inheriting the throne in the future, she will inevitably be respected as the queen mother, and she will become an absolute ruler above power.
What the queen needs most is such a well-behaved and controllable son, coupled with the strong recommendation of the queen mother, the queen and the ministers of the court, it is only a matter of time before the third elder brother becomes the prince.
After thinking about it carefully, the queen thought that adopting the third elder brother was the best choice.
As the emperor grew older, the youngest son, the sixth elder brother, was too young, and the third elder brother had always shown the talent that the emperor knew. The fourth elder brother is not only smart but also diligent, and the emperor will not hand over this country to a prince who lacks scheming and skill. Yi Xiu has been figuring out the emperor's mind all his life, but he has never been able to see through it, which is really sad!
Since the emperor's accession to the throne, he has been carefully considering every move, and the connection between the harem and the previous dynasty has always been close.
Inside and outside the harem, the emperor's power and the influence of the previous dynasty are intertwined and a delicate balance is maintained.
In order to reconcile the power of the court, the emperor put a lot of thought into it.
In the imperial family, it has always been considered ruthless, but it is a misunderstanding to think of the emperor as a monarch who is carried away by love.
Every decision of the emperor was well thought out, and he was far from being a ruthless ruler swayed by feelings.