"Spring Dawn in the Han Palace" (Ming Qiu Ying) (detail).
01 Prince
On the first day of September in the first year of Ming Taichang (1620), the Forbidden City Qianqing Palace.
Inside and outside the hall, everyone wore filial piety, and the cry shook the sky.
1620 was destined to be an unusual year for the Ming Dynasty.
In July, Zhu Yijun, who reigned for 48 years, died of illness. The old emperor died at the end of his life, who would have thought that on the first day of September, Zhu Changluo, who had been on the throne for only one month, also died suddenly.
The country cannot be without a king for a day, and the ministers who mourned in front of Guangzong's spirit hurriedly wiped away their tears and began to discuss various arrangements for the emperor's eldest son, Zhu Youxiao, to ascend the throne.
At this time, I don't know which minister mentioned it: "Why is the emperor's eldest son not here?"When everyone heard this, they were stunned at first, and then they were all shocked.
The first emperor has just died, and the eldest son of the emperor is not filial piety in front of the spirit, where will he be?
So, Liu Yixie, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, immediately questioned the eunuchs in the palace: "The eldest son of the emperor should be enthroned in front of the coffin of Emperor Daxing, but now he is not there, why is this?"”
In the face of the fierce questioning of the civil officials, the eunuchs kept silent and subconsciously fled in all directions. Only the eunuch Wang An, the eunuch of the celebrant Bingbi, stepped forward and whispered to the courtiers: "The eldest son of the emperor has been hidden by Li Xuanzhi (Xuan Shi: a maid in the palace who has not received a title). ”
As soon as these words came out, the civil officials were in an uproar, and Liu Yixiao, who was furious, even shouted angrily: "Who dares to hide the new son of heaven!."With that, the civil officials all rolled up their sleeves and ran straight to the Xinuan Pavilion where Li Xuan's servant lived with an angry face.
The dignity of the royal family still has to be preserved, Wang An was worried that the civil officials would be out of control, so he persuaded Liu Yixiao and others to wait outside the warm pavilion gate, and he himself entered to negotiate with Li Xuanzhi.
Moved by affection and reason, Wang An successfully persuaded Li Xuanzhi and promised to let him take Zhu Youxiao to Wenhua Palace, that is, the crown prince. Perhaps because he was afraid that Li Xuanzhi would regret it, Wang An hurriedly picked up Zhu Youxiao and ran out of the door as soon as he slipped away. Seeing this, the civil officials immediately greeted Zhu Youxiao with the imperial chariot and galloped towards the Wenhua Palace.
The words are divided into two ends, after Wang An took Zhu Youxiao away, the more Li Xuanzhi thought about it, the more wrong it became, oh no, I'm afraid I was not deceived by these old foxes!Li Xuanzhi, who regretted it, hurriedly ordered his confidant eunuch Li Jinzhong to lead people to chase after him, and he must snatch Zhu Youxiao back.
Are you pulling the young master to **?The young master is young and afraid of people!The voice of the eunuch leader Li Jinzhong came from far and near, and after a fierce chase, the panting eunuchs finally stopped Zhu Youxiao and his party.
This time, the eunuchs received death orders, blocked the road, dragged the sedan chair, and even openly dragged Zhu Youxiao in a vain attempt to directly rob people, and the scene fell into chaos.
His Royal Highness is the lord of the ministers, who is not His Highness's courtiers, and who will he be afraid of!Yang Lian immediately scolded angrily. Obviously, the crazy actions of the eunuchs instantly angered all the civil officials present, and they began to angrily denounce the various rude behaviors of the eunuchs, all of them gritted their teeth and looked hideous, as if they wanted to eat people.
Thinking that back then, Ma Shun, the commander of the Jinyi Guard, was beaten to death in public by civil officials, and of course the eunuchs had heard of such an old palace matter. Because of this, the angry civil officials finally forced back the crazy eunuchs, and Li Jinzhong and other eunuchs had to turn back the way they came.
Subsequently, the civil officials escorted the 16-year-old Zhu Youxiao to the Wenhua Hall to hold the "Zhengdong Palace" ceremony, and agreed to take the emperor's throne in the Qianqing Palace on the sixth day of the first month.
Yang Lian. 02 Palace Concubine
In fact, Li Xuanzhi is also a hard-working person.
As we all know, during the reign of Mingshenzong, the crown prince Zhu Changluo had no status at all, and although Li Xuanzhi was favored by the prince, he only followed his husband to survive in the cracks, and naturally had no sense of existence in the palace.
finally survived until Guangzong ascended the throne, thinking that it would not be too much to canonize an imperial concubine, but the courtiers were strongly opposed. Although Zhu Changluo repeatedly initiated court discussions for the canonization, he was blocked by the courtiers and finally failed.
Stopped for a while, but couldn't be stopped for a lifetime, Li Xuanzhi thought that the canonization was just a matter of time, who would have thought, Zhu Changluo died after a month as emperor. In addition to crying and grieving, a huge problem was placed in front of Li Xuanshi: her husband died, and she had no heirs except for a daughter, so what will she do in the future......
According to the ancestral system of the Ming Dynasty, the Qianqing Palace was the residence of the emperor and queen, and as soon as Guangzong died, Li Xuanzhi had to move his nest and go to the special nursing home for concubines. Such a bleak ending, of course, Li Xuanzhi couldn't accept it, so Li Xuanzhi started the idea of his adopted son Zhu Youxiao, once he controlled the emperor, he would have the power of the queen mother.
However, as the farce of the competition for the prince ended in failure, Li Xuanzhi also lost his most important bargaining chip, and after thinking about it, Li Xuanzhi sacrificed the last trick: cheating.
Li Xuanzhi decided to take root in the Qianqing Palace and wait for Zhu Youxiao to return to the Qianqing Palace to live, so that he could still "coerce the Son of Heaven to order the princes".
For Li Xuanshi's routine, the civil officials obviously expected that before he officially ascended the throne, Zhu Youxiao was temporarily placed in Ciqing Palace, and Wang An was responsible for taking care of it.
But Zhu Youxiao is going to return to the Qianqing Palace to take the throne after all, and Li Xuanzhi's nest is a major obstacle that civil officials have never been able to bypass, what else can I do, ** Bah!
In this way, the recital of asking Li Xuanzhi to move out of the Qianqing Palace flew into the Ciqing Palace like snowflakes, among which Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou and other ** words were the most intense. Zuo Guangdou even bluntly said: "If you don't make a decision early, and Li Xuanzhi does ** in the name of raising him, then the disaster of Empress Wu (that is, Wu Zetian) will be repeated!."”
But no matter how the ** officials criticized, Li Xuanzhi was physically immune to this, and he still stayed in the Qianqing Palace. Seeing that the auspicious day of the new emperor ascending the throne was approaching, the civil officials finally couldn't sit still.
On the fifth day of September in the first year of Taichang (1620), Ciqing Palace in the Forbidden City.
The civil officials came to the outside of the Ciqing Palace, and knelt at the gate of the palace, in this way imploring Zhu Youxiao to order Li Xuanzhi to move out of the Qianqing Palace immediately.
On the one hand, Li Xuanzhi, who once raised him, and on the other hand, the courtiers who kept asking for the life of Jiangshan Sheji, the young Zhu Youxiao was made into one head and two big, and he didn't know how to choose.
Seeing that Zhu Youxiao did not reply for a long time, Yang Lian took the lead in taking action, and he immediately asked the first assistant of the cabinet to ask Zhu Youxiao for advice on behalf of the courtiers.
Most of the radical ** people on the scene are Donglin Party members, and Fang Congzhe is the leader of the Zhejiang Party, the two sides have different political views, and Fang Shoufu is naturally unwilling to cooperate, so he responded indifferently: "It's okay to be late." ”
Although Yang Lian is only a seven-grade person, as a Donglin cadre, he is not afraid of Fang Congzhe, the first assistant, and immediately choked back: "I can't wait any longer!."Yesterday it was reasonable to live in the palace as the eldest son of the emperor, and tomorrow it will be the son of heaven, how can there be a reason to still live in the palace and avoid the palace people?”
Fang Congzhe listened, looked at the group of Donglin ** with angry eyes, and stopped speaking.
At this time, there were a large number of eunuchs in Ciqing Palace who accompanied Zhu Youxiao, these people were usually close to Li Xuanzhi, and when they saw that the civil officials were so persecuted, they couldn't stand it anymore, and they came out to accuse: "Don't you think that Li Xuanzhi was the old favorite of the first emperor at all?"”
Yang Lian didn't have any affection for Shoufu, let alone these eunuchs, so he scolded sharply: "The ministers are the ministers designated by the first emperor to take care of his life, and the first emperor wanted to take care of his son first, ** to take care of his concubine first. Either you will kill me, or if Li Xuanzhi does not move away today, I will not leave after death. ”
After Yang Lian finished speaking, the civil officials immediately agreed, and they all reprimanded Li Xuanzhi and the eunuchs for ignoring the country's social affairs.
After thinking about it repeatedly, Zhu Youxiao finally made a decision: "Li Xuanzhi lives in Renshou Palace and moves on the same day." ”
The arm is destined to be unable to reach the thigh, once the new emperor gives an edict, how dare an nameless and pointless servant continue to make trouble. Subsequently, Li Xuanzhi was full of resentment and unwillingness, and moved out of the Qianqing Palace with interest.
On the second day, that is, the sixth day of the ninth month, Zhu Youxiao officially ascended the throne as emperor in the Qianqing Palace.
Ming Xi Zong Zhu Youxiao.
03 Donglin
On the first day of September in the first year of Taichang (1620), the Forbidden City Qianqing Palace.
When the civil officials were still discussing how to recapture Zhu Youxiao from Li Xuanzhi, several Donglin bigwigs such as Zhou Jiamo, the secretary of the Ministry of Officials, and Zhang Wenda, the imperial history of the left capital of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, tried to throw out a motion: Zhu Youxiao has no relatives in the palace, can he entrust Li Xuanzhi to raise him on his behalf.
I want to give up your seat to the Leshan Giant Buddha back then, then I absolutely disagree. Yang Lian immediately objected: "How can the Son of Heaven be entrusted to a woman?"”
As soon as this remark came out, it was destined to be impossible to talk about this day, Zuo Guangdou followed closely and bluntly said that Li Xuanzhi hijacked the emperor's eldest son in order to seize power, and this bill ended.
In fact, as early as before, someone had planned the future role of Li Xuanshi, and that person was Zhu Changluo of Mingguangzong.
If the idea of canonizing Li Xuanzhi as the imperial concubine was Zhu Changluo's simple idea of spoiling the concubine at the beginning, then when he was seriously ill, it would not be as simple as spoiling the concubine.
Zhu Changluo has not been able to get his father's love in his life, although he is the crown prince, he has not received the due education of the prince, and his son Zhu Youxiao is even more miserable, when he was sixteen years old, he didn't know that it was a "one" word, and he was still illiterate.
Besides, Zhu Youxiao's biological mother and grandmother died early when he was a child, and once his father is gone, he will be completely orphaned. It is the instinct of parents to think for their children, and Zhu Changluo is no exception, because of this, he thought of Li Xuanzhi, the favorite concubine who had raised Zhu Youxiao, and hoped to assist Zhu Youxiao through her to balance the court situation and balance the outer court.
However, even though Zhu Changluo still issued a posthumous order to canonize Li Xuanzhi as the imperial concubine, a group of ministers in Donglin did not want to do so at all, but couldn't wait to drive Li Xuanzhi out of the Qianqing Palace, so that Zhu Youxiao was completely in their hands.
After Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne, he naturally reciprocated the Donglin Party that helped him successfully ascend the throne, and the little emperor praised Yang Lian, a loyal minister who worried about himself to the point of being white, and praised him for being a pillar of the imperial court.
Soon, the ministers such as Congzhe, the first assistant who did not perform well in the Red Pill case and the palace transfer case, were purged, and they were replaced by Donglin bosses Ye Xianggao, Liu Yixiao and others. Subsequently, Zou Yuanbiao, Gao Panlong, Zhao Nanxing, Qian Chun, Shi Menglin, Sun Shenxing and a large number of Donglin ** were recovered, and quickly formed a political pattern in which Donglin was outside, Wang An was included, and the two sides were each other's horns, and the Donglin Party was in charge of the government again.
When the court and the outside were very happy, there was also a hint of worry. Donglin will do it.
1. Yuan Huazhong, the imperial historian of Henan Province, was deeply worried about Zhu Youxiao's isolated situation in the palace, and he once sharply pointed out: "I am afraid that the emperor is isolated in the palace and is easy to be deceived, so both the inner court and the outer court should be cautiously protected." ”
Yuan's concerns are clearly forward-looking. After a short honeymoon period with the Donglin Party, Zhu Youxiao gradually adapted to the role of the emperor, and began to realize that the Donglin Party was getting bigger and bigger in the outer courts, and had the power to override the imperial power, and he had no relatives in this deep palace, and he had no way to compete with it.
So, Zhu Youxiao searched within the scope of his eyes, and finally locked his eyes on the nursing mother Keshi and her counterpart eunuch Wei Zhongxian. And this famous 9,000-year-old is the eunuch Li Jinzhong who came to stop the sedan chair and rob him in the past.
With the strong support of the emperor, the situation of the Apocalypse Dynasty was reversed in an instant, and Wei Zhongxian's power rose sharply, seriously threatening the position of the Donglin Party.
What is the little eunuch who was angrily reprimanded and requited by himself at the beginning, Yang Lian, who has been promoted to the left deputy capital of the imperial history, took the lead in attacking again. In June of the third year of the Apocalypse (1623), Yang Lian neglected Wei Zhongxian's twenty-four major crimes and asked the emperor to depose Wei Gelding.
But this time, the emperor's attitude obviously exceeded the expectations of the Donglin party. Zhu Youxiao was furious because of this, and issued an edict angrily reprimanding Yang Lian: "Just relying on your own imagination to cause trouble, it is nothing more than trying to expel my left and right and isolate me!"”
Immediately afterwards, with the assistance of the emperor, Wei Zhongxian launched a Jedi counterattack against the Donglin Party, and wiped it out in an instant.
In the fifth year of the Apocalypse (1625), Zhu Youxiao once again mentioned the old things of the old people, and wrote in the edict: "Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou and other vicious villains ......He was the first to advocate the relocation of the palace, colluded with each other, and coerced Concubine Kang (that is, Li Xuanzhi, who was posthumously named Concubine Kang by Zhu Youxiao), damaging my filial piety ......”
All final interpretation rights belong to the imperial power......