Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Six Cixi: Invite the Ancestors
Suddenly there seemed to be wind in the manor.
The cold breeze blew over the Empress Dowager Cixi's body, making her feel cold all over.
She looked around at the quiet surroundings. Although there was nothing around, she knew that there must be countless pairs of eyes hiding in the dark at this moment, staring at him, eager to eat his flesh and blood and gnaw on his bones.
If there was any other way, she wouldn't want to come here.
But there is no way. Peking has been lost. If we don't come, it will only be a matter of time before Shenyang is lost.
The Xiyi people are unreliable, the Han bureaucrats are unreliable, and even the Manchu princes are unreliable now. This is the only place she can rely on.
And it knew those things wouldn't kill her.
Because what she holds in her arms is the current emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who is the hope of the Qing Dynasty.
Those things need to continue to exist in the Qing Dynasty. This is the foundation for their immortality.
Emperor Tongzhi was the greatest talisman to her.
"Boom!" Suddenly, the heavy stone door in front slowly opened, revealing a gloomy underground cave. A gloomy and cold breath rushed from inside, which frightened the Empress Dowager Cixi and almost screamed.
But she knew she had to be steady at this time.
He picked up Emperor Tongzhi, entered the stone gate step by step, and disappeared into the darkness.
The stone door rumbled shut again, and the entire manor was still quiet, without even a trace of birds chirping or insects.
Half an hour later, Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Tongzhi knelt in front of the door of a stone chamber in the deepest part of the crypt.
Cixi saw many stone chambers like this along the way, but this stone chamber was the largest and the most luxurious one.
There is a plaque above the door of the stone chamber with five characters written on it.
A perfect residence for the elderly.
The stone room is magnificent and filled with various cultural objects, porcelain, precious calligraphy and paintings, gold and silver jewelry.
But the strange thing is that where the bed was originally placed in the stone room, there is a huge coffin.
This suddenly made the magnificent stone chamber become eerie and terrifying.
At this moment, at the same time that Cixi was kneeling down with Emperor Tongzhi, there was a sound coming from the coffin in the stone chamber.
"Tell me clearly, what's going on?"
"It's a man who calls himself Zhu Hongwu!"
"He appeared in Guangdong ten years ago and has been gathering troops over the years...!" Empress Dowager Cixi told everything that happened in the past ten years.
"Zhu Hongwu?"
"Is the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty resurrected, or is it an ordinary person bearing his name?" A voice sounded again from the coffin.
"have no idea!"
"But our spies have seen him, and it is said that he is almost identical to the real portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang collected in the palace!" Empress Dowager Cixi whispered.
"Zhu Yuanzhang...could it be that he also obtained some method of immortality and has lived from the early Ming Dynasty to the present?"
"Haha, if I have the chance, I really want to meet him for a while!"
"Let's see who among us is qualified to be called the Great Emperor." A cold smile came from the coffin.
At the same time, there were bursts of crunching and sharp friction sounds that made your teeth sore.
It's like someone is grinding their teeth.
"Ancestor, what can I do?" Empress Dowager Cixi suppressed the fear in her heart and asked.
"Take this junior back to Shengjing!"
"I will ask twenty guards to follow you to stabilize the situation in Shengjing!"
"They will listen to your orders, but you'd better wait until night before taking any action."
"They have difficulty moving, and they have to drink blood every day and cannot see the sun. Do you understand?" A voice came from the coffin.
"Ming...understand!" Cixi's face turned pale with fright.
"Also, if you want me to take action, you must have all the blood food ready!"
"It is best to have the blood of the Aisin Gioro family, the blood of the royal family under the age of forty. I have been deliberately cultivating such blood since a hundred years ago. You should know where to find such a person.
You have to bring at least 10,000 people, do you remember?"
"I remember!" Empress Dowager Cixi became increasingly frightened.
"Go for it!"
"Don't reveal our secrets, and there's no need to do anything deliberately. When the hypocritical Zhu Yuanzhang comes, I will handle it myself!"
It wasn't until the door to the crypt behind her slammed shut, that Empress Dowager Cixi finally let out a long, turbid breath while bathing in the sunlight.
Just now, she even felt like she had traveled to the underworld.
"Mother, who was that person just now?"
"It's so scary!" Emperor Tongzhi, who was too frightened to speak all the way behind him, finally asked in a low voice with tears in his eyes.
"My father is also sleeping in a coffin. Can he talk to me again?" Emperor Tongzhi asked in a low voice.
"Oops, I forgot the late emperor's body in Peiping!" When the Empress Dowager Cixi heard Emperor Tongzhi mention Xianfeng, her expression suddenly changed.
There has been a tradition in the Qing Dynasty since Emperor Qianlong. Every emperor would not enter the tomb after death. Instead, he would secretly swallow ghosts and gods before death, and then take a series of secret medicines to enter the emperor's cave here.
middle.
This is a method of immortality that Emperor Qianlong spent a lot of manpower and material resources to research in his later years.
Facts have proved that this method does work. Although there are many restrictions, such as being able to stay in the dark underground, and as long as you move, you need a lot of blood food every day, especially the blood food of your descendants, but at least nearly a hundred years have passed.
Emperor Qianlong is still alive.
As an emperor, this is enough.
Therefore, starting from Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang also used this method before they died, unable to withstand the temptation of immortality.
Although Xianfeng died in a hurry and did not have time to let him swallow the ghosts and gods, Cixi still gave it to him after his death. Originally, Xianfeng was also going to be transported, but then the pseudo-ming came and the matter was
Delayed.
Until she fled with Emperor Tongzhi, she never thought that his dead husband was still lying in the Forbidden City!
"Your Majesty, let's go!" Thinking of this, Empress Dowager Cixi felt a chill on her back.
You must know that Emperor Xianfeng’s father Daoguang, his grandfather Jiaqing, and his old grandfather Qianlong are all lying there!
If these people knew that she had forgotten Xianfeng in the Forbidden City, Cixi was afraid that these people would tear her alive...!
"Your Majesty, look!"
In the Forbidden City in Peking, Mao Xiang, who had not been seen for a long time, appeared and delivered a painting to Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang opened it and saw an extremely ugly guy with a donkey face, but somewhat similar to him.
"What is this?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked.
"Your Majesty, this is the portrait painted for you by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty!" Mao Xiang showed a trace of anger on his face.
"This is deliberately trying to vilify you!"
"In addition, the Ming History compiled by the Manchus also contains a lot of falsehoods, and it contains a lot of untrue events that slander you."
"Haha, that Emperor Qianlong really worked hard!"
"Don't tell me that this painting really has my charm. If I were a little thinner, my face would still look like that!"
Zhu Yuanzhang took the painting and looked at it carefully.
"When I go back in the evening, let my sister take a good look and see if he can recognize that this is a portrait painted for me by the later imperial court!" Zhu Yuanzhang even had the leisure to think about Queen Ma's shocked expression when this painting appeared in front of her.
To be honest, he had long expected the Manchu and Qing dynasty's vilification of him and the Ming Dynasty emperors. Even when he looked at the history of the late Ming Dynasty, he found that what the historians commented most on him was the mass killing of heroes and brutality.
.
The four major cases in the early Ming Dynasty were especially written down.
This was true even for the Ming Dynasty that he founded, let alone the Manchu Qing Dynasty that overthrew the Ming Dynasty.
He did feel angry at first, but now he has looked away.
History books are written by literati, and he has killed so many literati in his life. If others deliberately use Spring and Autumn's brushwork to vilify him, he can't control it.
He just needs to do what he is doing right now, and let future people evaluate it for themselves.
He believes that one day his good intentions in doing those things will be understood and praised by others.
As for the portrait that belittled his appearance, he laughed it off.
"This Qianlong is a wonderful man!"
"He is somewhat similar to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. There were two old emperors before him who worked hard to accumulate wealth for him, which was enough for him to expand his territory."
"Especially his father, Yongzheng, was able to implement the policy of paying taxes to both officials and gentry. Even we think this person is great."
"Without Yongzheng, the Qing Dynasty would probably have been a short-lived dynasty like the Yuan Dynasty!"
"But here's the interesting thing. Emperor Yongzheng was portrayed by history as a tyrant, but Emperor Qianlong became the founder of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong, and became an emperor throughout the ages."
"Mao Xiang, why do you think this is happening?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked Mao Xiang behind him.
"Of course it's the scholars."
"The official and gentry's unified payment of food touched their interests, so they naturally wanted to vilify Yongzheng in the history books."
"yes!"
"It's so difficult to be a good emperor!"
"Because a good emperor kills people!"
"But it is easy to be an emperor who will leave a name in history. Just like the clever Emperor Qianlong, if he cultivates books, fights, and win over the gentry, and has people praise his achievements, he will naturally become a wise emperor for the ages...
…!”
"Even though Qianlong was so fond of great achievements, he appointed corrupt people like He Shen, and there were countless peasant uprisings during his reign. Even though Qianlong did not seek to reform the country on the eve of the world's about to enter a major change, but instead indulged in his vain historical achievements, he
I’m still praised by people.”
"And what about Yongzheng? Such a good emperor who worked hard and made great contributions to the country and the country seems to have been forgotten by history."
"This is the lesson history has taught us." Zhu Yuanzhang said with emotion on his face.
"Your Majesty, you...!" Mao Xiang was a little worried.
"What? Are you still afraid that we will be hit?"
Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head with a smile: "Let's go, follow us to the outer city. We are hungry and have a bowl of noodles. We also happen to meet the people in Beiping City..."