The tent of the civil officials and military generals stayed as if they were dumbfounded, the pen of the Ministry of War Secretary of the pen in mid-air, "should be established" after the word content are still empty.
The Han Dynasty has always established a first wife and a first son, and if the emperor breaks this rule, it usually leads to great turmoil in the court and life-fighting protests from the civil officials.
In addition to the above-ground reasons for the Han officials to pay attention to rituals and laws, there are also under-the-table reasons for the various interest groups.
Once the rules are broken, such as "establish long" changed to "establish virtuous", then there is not a unified standard of measurement that can convince the public, virtuous or not can be performed according to the emperor's preferences.
This will not only lead to sibling rivalry in the heavenly family, but also lead to the civil official group taking sides, eliminating dissidents, and wavering the foundation of the state.
But the current situation is special, the emperor brought all the civil officials are the crown prince's party, this is to check and balance the power of the uncle of the third prince.
The Secretary of the Ministry of War, when he learned of the Emperor's injury, was already pondering the matter of the establishment of the Crown Prince.
If, according to the rules, the second prince as the crown prince, according to the character of the second prince, almost no doubt will become a puppet of the Tong Fei party, and may not even ask about the affairs of the court, and let the crown prince's interest group was wiped out.
Therefore, the civil officials present at the meeting will not request the emperor to establish the second prince, instead, they hope that the emperor will skip the second prince and the third prince, and select the new prince from the several young princes close to the crown prince.
Because to fight against the power of Tong family, the new ruler to be stable, the character must be tough, the fifth prince is the best candidate, the urgent need to hurry with the Khitan hostage exchange.
In the eyes of the minister, the sixth prince's ears are too soft, offending no one, I'm afraid I can't help him up.
However, never thought that the Emperor chose to establish the Crown Prince, not the Second Prince, nor the Fifth Prince, but the Seventh Prince.
This choice for the ministers is like the emperor was hungry and the ministers served him a fish and a beef to choose from, as a result, the emperor chose to go out and gnaw on the bark of a tree.
The seventh prince's reputation as a child prodigy was known to the court and the countryside early on, and while the common people had more or less reverent fantasies about this prince, the more knowledgeable courtiers had no illusions at all.
Because this little prince's behavioral ideas, always beyond the scope of understanding of everyone's speculation, simply unruly.
Not to mention whether or not this little guy could cooperate with the Crown Prince's party to fend off the attack of the Third Prince's party, even if he did, the ministers didn't think that such an out-of-situation child would be able to carry the weight of the society.
So at this moment, not only are the third prince and Tong Ningzhao against the new Crown Prince candidate, the rest of the Crown Prince Party ministers actually can't accept this new Crown Prince either.
The tent full of people froze.
But no one dared to object.
The emperor hangs a breath, who argued two sentences, in case of anger with the emperor, the sky crumbles in a snap of the fingers, that is a great crime that will involve nine families, just became the new ruler of the prestige victims.
The ministers are waiting.
When the Emperor is more lucid, he may stop gnawing on the bark and come back to choose fish to eat.
However they didn't wait for the Emperor to change his mind before he waved them off.
The Emperor only let the Seventh Prince stay alone and instructed something.
The people all bowed and withdrew, and the Seventh Prince was still kneeling on the floor, frowning with a small brow and gravely lowering his eyes to the carpet, as if he was thinking about some national matter.
The emperor raised his hand and patted the edge of the couch, saying with a strained voice, "Lu Qian come here."
The Seventh Prince stood up with his head hanging down, grunted and huffed as he walked over to his father's side and sat down, raised his eyes to look at the Emperor's deathly pale face, and then quickly and angrily dropped them again, as if by not facing up to his father's weakness all the horrors wouldn't have happened.
The emperor took the military talisman he had just claimed back from the third prince and handed it to the seventh prince: "Keep it."
The Seventh Prince didn't move.
The Emperor had no choice but to put down the military symbols for now and give his youngest son a little time to digest everything that had happened.
At the moment when his life was about to burn out, all of the Emperor's former hidden worries loomed at once.
He categorically believed in Aunt Po's prophecy at this moment, not only because he believed in heaven's destiny, but also because at this moment of desperation, Aunt Po's advice gave him groundbreaking new considerations for the successor to the throne.
In fact, once upon a time the Emperor had been vaguely concerned that the character of the Crown Prince was closer to that of a literati gentleman with a backbone than to that of an emperor.
The Prince is more than virtuous, more than filial and fraternal, more than affectionate, but lacks some of the coldness and power of looking at the big picture.
Such a person is more suited to serve an official allegiance than to become a lord of the land.
In the emperor's opinion, among his sons, the oldest four possesses just the right amount of thick and darkness and a holistic view of the situation, and there is enough patience and eight-sided means, but it is a pity that it lacks the bones and toughness of the emperor.
The oldest is too small-minded and dim-witted.
The oldest five and the oldest six are untrained and do not have enough heart to maneuver with the civil officials.
The old seventh he never considered, this little guy has always been his joy, no one would associate the seventh prince with the throne of the Crown Prince.
Aunt Po's prophecy, however, broke the emperor's thinking confinement, and he felt violently that Lao Qi's nature was almost a natural emperor.
This child's way of thinking is extremely unique, without the need to painstakingly delve into the art of empire, he can make the civil ministers not be able to guess his mind, but on the contrary, he is always able to make the most favorable choices on the key major events.
No one knew what he was thinking, looking silly but seeming to know everything.
And the supreme way of governing the country that has been honored by all the emperors and kings - the external use of Confucianism and the internal use of Huang Lao.
This realm also seemed to be naturally attached to his fat son.
The core of Huang Lao's art centers around the "Tao", which contains the ultimate state of ruling by doing nothing - no good, no evil, nothing to be tolerated, and conforming to nature.
The Way of Heaven requires the emperor to stand in an egoless realm with no prejudice against all things, so that the officials in office and the peasants, merchants, and warriors of the universal world can all exercise their subjective initiative, without going through the deliberate guidance of restriction, so that all people can work for their own interests instead of being walking corpses subjected to the mercy of others, and the country will naturally be strong and powerful.
However, when it comes to implementation, no one is like grass or trees. Who can view all beings from the perspective of egolessness? Who can always take a holistic view and make decisions that maximize benefits?
For a moment, the prophecy Aunt Poi gave him suddenly made him think--
His youngest son was able to reach this realm without much effort, even originally.
The ultimate imperial way that the emperor had been trying to get closer to all his life, but at this moment, he suddenly realized that it was as if his youngest son was already standing at the top of the destination he wanted to reach since he was born.
Thinking of all this, his youngest son's eccentric temperament since childhood, all of which made him feel enlightened, the heavens surprisingly gave him a natural embryo of an emperor.
That's why he made such a decision in a decisive manner.
Unfortunately, he understood too late, and everything happened so suddenly, the youngest son has not experienced setbacks since childhood, how to make this worldly son suddenly produce control of the world's ambition and desire for power?
The Emperor's sanity, which had been held together by force of will, gradually lapsed, and his head lolled to one side in exhaustion.
The Seventh Prince, who was lowering his head, immediately reached out nimbly to stabilize the Emperor's shoulders, grabbing his father's arm with one hand to hang it on the back of his neck, and dragging him forward by the waist with one hand, as if he wanted the Emperor to lie down flat and rest for a while.
Afraid of pulling Father's wounds, his men didn't dare to use too much force and could only push little by little.
The emperor looked sideways at his son's boyish yet lack of man's angular face, asked in a low voice: "What are you afraid of? Leisurely, I can not carry, how to carry the ancestors of the river and mountain in the future?"
The Seventh Prince stubbornly refused, "Father carries."
"Father is tired."
"The eunuchs give medicine to drink, father soon get well, find elder brother fifth brother back, take my son back to the palace."
The emperor frowned worriedly, looked heavily at his son who was not yet ready to grow up to be a man, and spoke in a low voice: "Wang Sun Jia asked:Instead of pandering to Ao, I'd rather pander to Zao, what's the meaning of that?"
The Seventh Prince refused to reach the next sentence.
The emperor pressed, "Answer me."
The Seventh Prince replied in a low voice, "The Son said, Otherwise, if you are offended by Heaven, you will have nothing to pray for."
The Emperor said, "That's right, this is the basis of a gentleman's establishment. When you were young, you said that you know the style of a gentleman, a gentleman never clings to, and will never rely on a mountain. The mountain will fall, if you can't stand on your own, you can only follow the fall to pieces, think about your mother consort, she can only choose to climb on the mountain of me, if you can't stand on your own, you also want to watch your mother consort fall to pieces with me?"
The Seventh Prince finally looked at his father in a resigned manner, "Wait for Big Brother and Fifth Brother to come back to carry it for Father."
"I have chosen you." The emperor gathered his last strength and looked at his son majestically, "Lu Qian, do you bear the burden?"
The Seventh Prince averted his gaze.
"Lu ...... cough ...... cough!" The emperor was in a hurry and had a violent coughing fit.
The Seventh Prince hurriedly pulled up the thin quilt to cover his father, and reluctantly obeyed, "I can afford it."
The emperor stabilized his breath and forced a question in a deep voice, "I didn't hear it clearly."
The Seventh Prince could only muster up enough strength to roar, "My son can afford it!"
The emperor finally breathed a sigh of relief, after this breath of relief, his sanity instantly lax, confused in the son instructed: "Northwest Governor subject to Tong Ningzhao, I have not yet ...... you temporarily ...... can not be ......"
The Seventh Prince put his ear to his father's mouth, wanting to hear his father's delivery clearly.
The emperor has not gathered lax spirit, chaotic murmur: "You can not ...... rush to cut the ...... Tong family wings, the cabinet and the six ministries and nine secretaries ...... Don't rush to change, first pull together ...... pull together ......"
The Seventh Prince maintained his posture of bending his head and ears, but did not wait for his father's next delivery.
"Father? Father!" The Seventh Prince turned his head and yelled, "Imperial Doctor!"
The eunuch waiting outside the door immediately walked in, checked his pulse and told the young prince that the emperor needed to rest from his injuries.
The seventh prince's eyes were red, and when he heard that his father was just resting, he was able to restore the majesty of a prince in front of the eunuchs.
After the eunuch retired, the seventh prince carefully lay down on his side beside the emperor, burying his little fat face into the crook of his father's arm, like a little wolf cub claiming the last remaining warmth of a dying mother wolf.
*
It was the second night, the little fat cub had not yet returned, and Xue Yao sat alone and withered by the swaying candle flame.
The Sixth Prince had already told him about the Emperor's change to a Crown Prince.
This sudden turn of events was unbelievable.
Xue Yao had no way of figuring out how the Emperor could somehow hand over the kingdom to his husky son? And it was at a time when the eldest prince had disappeared and the third prince had gained power.
What on earth is the intention of pulling the little fat kid out to be a target at such a time?
Might as well just set up the Third Prince and pull less hate for his cub.
All the predictable and terrible things had yet to happen, and Xue Yao was already in a state of confusion.
Why is Fatty still in the Emperor's tent at this moment?
Could it have come out and been captured by the Third Prince's men?
Thinking of this, Xue Yao once again put on his coat and walked out of the tent, looking out into the darkness and waiting.