"I'm surprised. Although Zhang Ruitu is the Minister of Rites, he doesn't have much power in his hands."
"How dare he promise you two such a thing?"
"If I remember correctly, the money and food donated by the King of Qin and the King of Jin were worth more than ten million taels of silver."
Zhu Youxiao's question caused Zhu Cunshu and Zhu Shenxuan to feel embarrassed again.
But they also knew that they could not escape by hiding. After being silent for a while, they said honestly:
"I actually don't know why he dared to guarantee it. I also asked him that day and he said that the person they supported successfully succeeded to the throne, so what he said will definitely come true."
Hearing this answer, Zhu Youxiao nodded indifferently.
This is not empty talk. If Zhang Ruitu dares to take such a big risk to support him, then their relationship must not be simple.
But he was also a little surprised that Ruitu actually spent such a large amount of money to bribe these two people just to find out whether he was alive.
This is untrue no matter how you look at it, it doesn't look like the methods of stingy civil servants like them.
When Zhu Youxiao just mocked the two of them, he only mentioned this benefit lightly.
But that's just to beat them up.
When I was in Taiyuan and Xi'an, the Qin Fan and Jin Fan's families were confiscated.
That money and food was a huge sum of money. All kinds of food, rice, cloth, silk, and gold, silver, and jade were worth tens of millions of taels of silver.
Zhu Youxiao thought about it carefully and felt that there were only two possibilities, either Zhang Ruitu wrote a bad check to these two simple fools.
Either he has a back-up plan, a bigger plan, and needs support from the two of them.
At least the role of these two brothers is not just to inquire about information.
Although Zhu Youxiao looked down on the two of them a little, he was still the prince of the feudal lord after all.
Moreover, the Qin Fan and the Jin Fan were not ordinary vassals. The Qin Fan was a clan order, and the Jin Fan was a Zongzheng.
Although the power of the sects and vassals has been almost exhausted since the Yongle year, they still have some prestige and voice within the clan.
Why did Zhu Youxiao want to win Qin Fan and Jin Fan to his side? Wasn't it because he took a fancy to them.
Make preparations in advance so that your future vassalization can be smoother.
At this time, Zhu Youxiao thought of Ruitu, who had proposed to him to recall Zhu Youjian when he "entrusted the funeral arrangements" a few days ago.
Thinking of this, he sneered secretly and said that he had sent all the people to Guangzhou, but some people still persisted in their evil intentions.
It must have been the fact that he appointed King Rui as the supervisor of the country, which stimulated them and made them mistakenly believe that he would pass the throne to King Rui after his death.
That's why he spent so much money and took such a big risk to lure Zhu Cunshu and Zhu Shenxuan into trouble to increase their leverage.
After all, Zhu Youjian has the closest bloodline to himself. According to the ancestral motto of Emperor Ming set by Taizu, brothers will eventually succeed each other. If he died and there was no prince, Zhu Youjian should be the one to take the throne.
I'm afraid the proposal made that day was both a test and an anxiety that they couldn't wait for a replacement.
[To be honest, I have been using the Changing Source app recently to read and catch up on new books. It allows me to switch sources and read aloud with many different sounds. It can be used on both Android and Apple.]
But they never expected that they did not follow the routine and actually pushed King Rui out to supervise the country, which caught them off guard.
You must know that there are quite a few officials in the court who are attached to Wang Zaijin, Xu Guangqi and others, and they have much more say than them.
If the decree was really issued for King Rui to succeed to the throne of emperor, even with the ancestral precepts of Emperor Ming, their weak voice would probably have little effect.
After thinking about this, Zhu Youxiao didn't pay attention to Zhang Ruitu's plot and tricks.
"Then who is the person he supports?"
Although Zhu Youxiao had already guessed that Zhang Ruitu wanted to support Zhu Youjian's rise to power, in the end it was still his guess, and there was no evidence to show that he was definitely helping Zhu Youjian.
So he still wanted to confirm this from the side.
Then Zhu Cunshu's answer made him a little disappointed.
"I don't know about this. I asked him about it at the beginning, but he did not change his speech and revealed that I also thought that it would be better to do less than to do more. Knowing too much about this kind of thing would not be beneficial to the direct, so I did not pursue the question further.
Already."
After understanding almost everything, Zhu Youxiao no longer wanted to waste time with them. He looked at the two of them and said seriously:
"Okay, I don't have anything to ask you anymore. This matter has been revealed and I will not pursue you any further."
"You two are not allowed to reveal a word to anyone, otherwise even I won't be able to protect you, remember?"
"In addition, I also have something that I need you two to do."
"Didn't Zhang Ruitu ask you to enter the palace to get information? Then tell him that you didn't see me, you just saw me lying on the bed from a distance without saying a word. You don't know who I am.
Death is life.”
"If he asks you who is in the Qianqing Palace, tell him that Wei Zhongxian is guarding you and will never leave."
"Especially, you have to tell him that not long after you entered the palace, Wei Zhongxian kicked you two out on the grounds that I was unwell and needed to rest."
Although they didn't understand why the emperor ordered them to do this, Zhu Cunshu and Zhu Shenxuan didn't dare to refuse at this time.
Keep in mind the emperor's words just now, saying that he will never let the emperor down.
Zhu Youxiao looked at the two of them expressing their loyalty and just smiled indifferently:
"Don't worry, when the time is right, I will let you go to Xi'an and Taiyuan, but not right now."
"After you leave the palace later, just do what I told you just now. The rest has nothing to do with you."
"If Zhang Ruitu finds you and takes the initiative to ask, you can just pretend to be deaf and dumb, and he won't dare to do anything to you."
"I will keep this in mind and hope that your majesty's dragon body will recover soon. I will leave first."
Zhu Cunshu and Zhu Shenxuan finally entered the palace, and it can be said that they were frightened.
Seeing that the emperor had finished speaking, Zhu Cunshu reacted quickly for the first time. He just wanted to leave the palace and return to the palace as soon as possible to relax.
When Zhu Youxiao saw that the two of them were thinking of retreating, he did not stop them and just waved his hand to indicate that they could leave.
Just as the two bowed and slowly exited the palace, the emperor's cold voice sounded again.
"In the future, please remember not to sit with your butt crooked. No matter when and where you are, you must remember that your surname is Zhu and that you are my family. I hope I will not hear or see anything like this today in the future."
They knew very well that the emperor's words were both a blow and a threat to them.
If this happens again, depending on the emperor's cold and cruel temperament and tough methods, they may follow in the footsteps of the feudal clan.
What they didn't know was that not long after they walked out of the Qianqing Palace, Zhu Youxiao called Xu Xianchun.
"I asked you to monitor Prince Qin and Prince Jin. Is this how you monitor them?"
"Zhang Ruitu, a civil servant, could send someone to secretly sneak into Prince Xin's palace for an interview. Is your Jin Yiwei's spy so bad?"
Xu Xianchun did not try to find excuses. He knelt on the ground and replied in horror and certainty:
"Your Majesty, please calm down. I promise that from now on, such mistakes will never happen again."