In view of the severe famine, the continual war, and the lack of internal funds, Chongzhen ordered the Supervisor of Ceremonies to issue an edict ten days ago: This year, during the Queen's Thousand Autumn Festival, any woman who has been ordered to enter the palace to pay tribute and pay tribute, or send congratulatory notes, will be exempted.
However, after the edict was issued, the queen's mother, Mrs. Ding of Jiading Bofu, wrote two letters in a row, requesting special grace to allow her to enter the palace to congratulate her. The words of love were sincere. Because the queen rarely met his mother, Chongzhen suddenly issued an edict three days ago.
Mrs. Ding entered the palace, but she was exempted from offering birthday tributes. He thought that since the queen's mother was among the concubines who came to the palace to congratulate her, she should not be too frugal.
Kunning Palace has three gates: the one facing east and facing a long east street is called Yongxiang Gate; the one facing west and facing West Long Street is called Zengrui Gate; after entering, you pass through the patio courtyard, and then there is the main gate facing south, named
It's called Shunzhen Gate. Chongzhen passed through the Jiaotai Hall and arrived outside the Yongxiang Gate. He didn't allow the eunuch guarding the gate to greet him, so he walked in quietly. He originally wanted to surprise Empress Zhou by walking into the Kunning Palace suddenly.
, and see how the whole palace is preparing for the celebration the day after tomorrow. But when he walked outside the Shunzhen Gate, he stopped hesitantly. Although the Queen's Thousand Autumn Festival last year did not require her married woman to drive to the court, but Yongxiang and Zengrui two
Colored archways were erected three days ago outside the door and on the east and west long streets. On the first two nights, many luxurious lanterns were hung, sparkling with jewels, and the whole courtyard shone with warm red. Although there were also colorful archways erected this year, they were
It was much simpler than in previous years, with sparse lights. Feeling sad in his heart, he turned around and walked out of Zengrui Gate, silently returned to Qianqing Palace, and sat down slumped in front of the imperial case piled with many documents.
When a eunuch saw that the emperor had not said where he would stay tonight, he followed the palace rules and came to him and knelt down with a brocade box in his hands. He opened the lid of the box and revealed a row of ivory plaques. On each plaque
There was a palace name engraved on it. If he wanted to stay in a palace tonight, he would pull out a tooth tag with that palace name engraved on it. The eunuch immediately took the tooth tag and went to tell the palace lady to dress and wait. But he knelt for a long time, Chongzhen said.
Then I looked at him and shook my head in disgust. He closed the brocade box, stood up timidly, and walked out breathlessly. The entire Qianqing Palace was enveloped in a heavy and uneasy atmosphere, and another long night began.
At dawn, Chongzhen got up very early as usual and prayed to the sky in the courtyard of Qianqing Palace. He returned to the Nuan Pavilion and ate a bowl of bird's nest soup, then hurriedly took the chariot to go to court. It was not yet bright, and the twilight began to shine on the majestic palace.
On the yellow glazed tile. Because of Concubine Tian, he was more depressed than usual today. He sighed in his heart and said: "The Wanli Emperor often did not go to court for the whole year when he was in Japan, and rarely met with his ministers. Emperor Tianqi was in Japan.
I also did not go to court for a whole year and did not personally take charge of the affairs. The destiny of the country was not as difficult as it is today. I worked hard to run the world and did not dare to slack off, but I could not restore the heart of heaven. The affairs of the country were getting worse day by day, and there was no improvement in sight.
In order to raise military funds to protect the country of our ancestors, unexpectedly, the emperor and relatives opposed it, and all the ministers stood aside and watched. Even my beloved concubine stood on the side of outsiders and spoke! Alas, heaven! Heaven! When will the days of sitting in this trapped city end?
?”
After a while, he thought that Yang Sichang, the Supervisor and Assistant Minister, and Chen Xinjia, the Secretary of the Ministry of War, were both people who could do things for him.
.
Today is the court meeting at Zuoshunmen, and the court ceremony is relatively simple. Chongzhen is not willing to listen to some of the official memorials from various yamen. Some courtiers report the severe disasters in their hometowns and plead for reduction of land taxes and donations, but he is even less willing to listen.
Listen. Some ministers also reported how urgent the "thief situation" somewhere was, and begged to send troops to eliminate it. This made him angry. He said in his heart: "You are in the imperial court, but you don't know the difficulties of the imperial court! Where do the soldiers come from? Where do the wages come from?
Where did it come from? It was all in a dream!"
But he rarely spoke. Sometimes he just said: "I understand."
Then he asked the Minister of the Ministry of Finance and the left and right ministers to come out of the class with a stern look on his face. Because he had been moody recently, and he was angry more often, so the three ministers felt chills running down their spines when they saw his face, and they hurriedly asked him.
He knelt down in front of him. Because Chongzhen's request for help from Li Guorui was not going well, he forced the Ministry of Revenue to quickly think of a way to raise wages a few days ago. Now he looked at these three ministers and asked:
"In view of the current difficulties in military pay, you ministers in the Ministry of Household Affairs suggest that you temporarily borrow private housing in the capital for one year. I have read the title last night, and I have issued a decree to approve the temporary loan for one year. This matter must be handled seriously, and it must not be in vain.
The name of disturbing the people does not help the country."
The Minister of Household Affairs paused and said: "This matter will be handled by Shuntian Prefecture and Daxing and Wanping Counties, and it must be done as much as possible to help the country's urgent needs."
Chongzhen nodded and said: "Since we are doing it, we must do it vigorously and resolutely, and we must not start in a hurry or end in a tail end."
He asked a few more questions from the Ministers of the Ministry of War and other Yamen, and then left the court. Returning to the Qianqing Palace, he changed his clothes, had breakfast, and sat in front of the imperial case to read the documents as usual. He first read Xue Guoguan's
He wrote a memorial to defend himself and did not admit that Shi Cunyin had been swallowed up. Chongzhen was very dissatisfied and almost had a fit, but he immediately held back. On the one hand, he did not want to punish the ministers on the day before the Queen's Qianqiu Festival, but on the other hand, he still hoped
He got a little help from Xue Guoguan in asking Qi Wan for help. After Xue Guoguan approved the word "Liu Zhong" in his memorial, he snorted bitterly and walked out of Qianqing Palace, looking for a place to relax.
To relieve their suffocation, a group of eunuchs and palace maids followed behind them with bated breath, not daring to let their footsteps make a single sound. When they arrived at the gate of Qianqing, a deacon and eunuch didn't know whether to prepare a chariot for service, so he took a step forward, bowed and asked:
"Where do you want your Majesty to drive? Do you want to take a chariot?"
Chongzhen was hesitant. Going forward from the Qianqing Palace were the three main halls, and walking past the Jiaotai Palace was the Queen's Kunning Palace, and beyond that was the Imperial Garden. He had no intention of going to the Kunning Palace to see the maids and eunuchs preparing for tomorrow.
He was busy preparing for the Thousand Autumn Festival, and he was not in the mood to go to the Imperial Garden to see flowers and goldfish. On weekdays, he would naturally go to Chengqian Palace to find Concubine Tian, but now she was relegated to Qixiang Palace. He had never been interested in Concubine Yuan.
Although there were many other concubines, he never liked them. He stopped, looked up at the sky blankly, and remained silent for a long time. At this moment, he suddenly heard the sound of drumming coming from the east. He turned around and asked:
"Where is the music played?"
A eunuch next to her echoed: "Tomorrow is the Thousand-Autumn Festival for Her Majesty the Queen. The Queen is afraid that there will be many things tomorrow, so she went to Fengxian Hall to pay homage to her ancestors today."
"Ah, you might as well go to the Fengxian Hall to pay homage first!" Chongzhen said to himself, remembering that the Queen was the Lord of the Sixth Palace. He should explain to her the reason for punishing Concubine Tian, and he could also tell her that it was up to her.
She secretly asked her father, Jiading Bo Zhou Kui, to donate tens of thousands of silver to set an example among Qi Wan. With this thought, he walked out of the Qianqing sect.
To go from Qianqing Palace to Fengxian Palace, you should go back through Qianqing Gate, go out of Rijing Gate and go east. You can reach it by passing through the inner east Yuku and taking the road. But because he was confused, he walked out of Qianqing Gate and then walked eastward. He walked back north along the long street. When he arrived outside the Rijing Gate, he suddenly hesitated. He didn't want to go to the Fengxian Hall to disrupt the queen's salute. Moreover, it was not easy to talk to the queen about Concubine Tian in front of the ancestral god. He asked Qi Wan for help. So he paused for a moment and continued walking north. The eunuchs thought he was going to Kunning Palace, and one of his attendants hurriedly ran ahead to call for him to be picked up by Kunning Palace. However, Chongzhen said softly:
"I only went to Jiaotai Palace to sit there, not Kunning Palace!"
After sitting in Jiaotai Hall for a while, he felt extremely upset. Then he stood up again, walked out of the hall, and waited. After a while, Zhou Hou came back from Fengxian Palace. Seeing his melancholy face, Zhou Hou hurried forward to ask. road:
"Why is the Emperor here?"
"I heard that you went to Fengxian Hall to pay homage, so I will wait for you here."
Zhou Hou asked timidly: "Does your Majesty have something to wait for me?"
"Concubine Tian was relegated to Qixiang Palace, did you know?"
"I heard about it before dusk yesterday." Zhou Hou lowered his head and sighed.
"Do you know why I punished her?"
"I still don't know why the emperor divided Tianfei. I am the master of the Sixth Palace and cannot set an example for concubines. It is natural that I am guilty of making the Nyonya Emperor of the East Palace so angry. I hope that the emperor will remember her, even though she is a bit spoiled and proud. Other than that, there is nothing serious. What’s more, she has raised three sons for His Majesty. The fifth prince is lively and cute, so the punishment should not be too severe."
"I also saw that the fifth prince was only five years old, so I didn't punish him strictly."
"For what purpose?"
"She is so favored that she dares to communicate with others outside the palace and speak for Li Guorui!"
Empress Zhou suddenly understood that Concubine Tian had been punished for this, and was shocked. Since the Li Guorui incident came out, her father Zhou Kui had also secretly asked the eunuchs of Kunning Palace to send a message, begging her to speak for Li Guorui in front of the emperor. She was deeply moved. Knowing that the emperor was suspicious, she ignored him and reprimanded the eunuch. Now that she heard what Chongzhen said, she was glad that she had not meddle in other people's affairs. She lowered her head and thought for a moment, and then she plucked up the courage to explain:
"The family laws of this dynasty are very strict and the concubines are not allowed to interfere with matters outside the palace. However, Empress Tian may have been entrusted by her father, which is different from the normal communication outside the palace. Furthermore, the royal relatives are all involved with each other. It is human nature for everyone to care when something happens to a family. Tian Hongyu begged the Empress of the East Palace to speak in front of the Emperor, which is very inappropriate in theory and not surprising in human terms. Please Your Majesty..."
Chongzhen didn't wait for the queen to finish speaking. He glared and scolded severely: "Nonsense! How dare you ignore the laws of your ancestors and indulge Concubine Tian!"
The queen said with a trembling voice: "I don't dare. Concubine Tian was punished today because of the emperor's excessive pampering. I have punished Concubine Tian with courtesy, and even made the emperor angry because of this. How dare I indulge Concubine Tian!" "
Chongzhen pointed at her and said: "You, you, what did you say!"
The queen never dared to speak loudly in front of Chongzhen. Now because the emperor scolded her so severely in front of all the eunuchs and maids, she felt very aggrieved. She suddenly summoned up the courage and said tremblingly with tears in her eyes:
"Your Majesty, you have forgotten! On New Year's Day last year, because of the famine and wars all over the land, the wife was exempted from entering the palace, and only the family members were allowed to come to Kunning Palace to congratulate. That morning, it was snowing heavily. When Concubine Tian came to congratulate, Because I am angry at Concubine Tian, I am getting more and more proud every day, and sometimes I don’t even look down on me. Your Majesty, you don’t care, so I plan to take this opportunity to show Concubine Tian some color and set an example. After hearing the performance of the female officer’s report, I asked Concubine Tian to wait inside the Yongxiang Gate. After a while, I slowly ascended the throne and announced Concubine Tian to enter the palace. After Concubine Tian knelt down and bowed, I neither allowed her to talk in Kunning Palace nor allowed her to sit down. , without even saying a word, I watched her exit the palace. After a while, Concubine Yuan came to congratulate me, and I immediately announced her to enter the palace. After she had bowed, I stepped down from the throne and pulled her in with a smile. Nuan Ge talked like sisters. Concubine Tian was angry at being treated coldly by me this time. Then she heard about my treatment of Concubine Yuan and became even more angry. In the spring, Concubine Tian told the emperor about it. The emperor I thought that I and the emperor were a couple in distress at the residence, so I was not angry, but I blamed me for going too far. Could it be that I indulged her?"
No one in the palace usually dared to refute Chongzhen's words. He only allowed people to be respectful and obedient in front of him. Now after hearing the queen refuting his words, saying that he was used to doting on Concubine Tian, she couldn't help but get angry and cursed: " "You bastard" and pushed Queen Zhou hard. Zhou Hou was caught off guard and had small feet. He staggered back and fell to the ground. The eunuchs and maids on the left and right immediately rushed forward, threw themselves to the ground, and knelt down. At the feet of Chongzhen, he shouted in a low voice: "Your Majesty, please calm down! Your Majesty, please calm down!" At the same time, the other two maids quickly helped the Queen up. It turned out that Zhou Hou was recalling that she and the Emperor were a couple in need in the Xinwang Mansion, so she was dismissed by the palace maids. After helping her up, she blurted out: "Believe in the king! Believe in the king!" She covered her face and burst into tears. The maids were afraid that she would say something else and make the emperor angry, so they quickly helped her onto the phoenix chariot and gathered around Kunning Palace. Then he left. Chongzhen looked at the group of eunuchs and maids still kneeling at his feet. He had no place to vent his anger, so he kicked one of the eunuchs, snorted bitterly, and turned around to walk towards Qianqing Palace.
After returning to Qianqing Palace and sitting for a while, Chongzhen's anger subsided. He originally wanted to talk to the queen about the last resort he had to seek help from Qi Wan, and asked the queen to secretly tell her father to spend tens of thousands of silver as an initiative. Unexpectedly, he suddenly Furious, he pushed the queen to the ground, but did not say a word. He regretted that his temper had become worse and worse recently, and at the same time, he felt at a loss because he could not ask the queen to secretly tell Zhou Kui to ask for help. He endured his annoyance. , reviewed the newspapers and memorials sent from various places, most of which were about disasters, civil uprisings, and requests for military pay. There was a memorial written by Yang Sichang. Although it also requested military pay, it also reported that he was mobilizing troops to move Zhang Xian Zhong and Luo Rucai besieged the area at the junction of Sichuan and Hubei, hoping to annihilate them. Chongzhen could not believe that he would be able to succeed in the battle. He sighed and said to himself:
"Siege! Siege! Who will be besieged? Every year I say that we will besiege and exterminate the bandits, but they are all empty talk. The state of affairs is like this, but I am besieged layer by layer in the Forbidden City!"
Zhou Hou returned to Kunning Palace and cried for a long time. During lunch, she refused to get out of bed to eat. The high-ranking palace officials and eunuchs in Kunning Palace came to her in batches and knelt down to plead outside her bedroom, but she ignored her. From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in view of the misfortune of the previous generation's foreign relatives who were monopolizing power, a system was established: concubines were not selected from the families of royal relatives, senior officials, or high officials, but dignified and beautiful girls were selected from so-called civilian families with innocent family backgrounds.
Anyone who becomes a queen or a favored concubine will rise to the top of their family and become very prosperous and wealthy. This work is recommended by registered members of Piaotian Literature