Yongli Ming Dynasty

Chapter 53 Concerns
In the backyard of the palace, the sky is high in the autumn afternoon, and a large area of ​​golden chrysanthemums is planted beside the small lake

At this time, the autumn scenery is in full bloom, and the garden is full of golden chrysanthemums.

Zhu Lang and Wang Yue walked in front, while a group of palace maids and eunuchs followed behind them at a distance.
The two walked in the garden for a while, but remained silent. Zhu Lang glanced at the girl beside him and didn't know what to say.

Although the princess has been married into the palace for nearly a year, she is actually only seventeen years old.

After the Guiwangfu arrived in Guangxi Province, they decided on Zhu Lang's marriage.

Although the Guiwang Mansion was a refugee, its status was extraordinary. Not to mention the Guiwang Mansion, even Zhu Lang was also granted the title of Yongming Wang at that time, a genuine state prince. Therefore, the person he married could not be an ordinary family.
Wang Yue was also born into an official family. It is said that her grandfather was a prefect of a place in Guangdong Province. Wang Yue was born into such a family, so he was naturally well-educated and well-mannered.

Although the royal palace first considers family background when selecting a bride, Wang Yue's appearance is not bad to be chosen by the royal palace. If it were in her previous life, she would have been 70% to 80% beautiful even without makeup.

Although the person in front of him was beautiful, Zhu Lang felt quite embarrassed at this moment. Strictly speaking, this was only the second time he met Wang Yue.

He didn't know how well this person knew him, so he wanted to find some topics to talk about, but he was afraid of revealing his true identity, so he hesitated for a while but still didn't speak.

Zhu Lang's mind was full of thoughts. He was just trying to find an excuse to escape from here and end this awkward situation of staring at each other in silence, but the girl next to him suddenly spoke up.

"Your Majesty, are you still raising thrush birds recently?"

"Thrush?"

Zhu Lang was stunned for a moment, and quickly searched in his mind, then calmly said
“I don’t want to raise it anymore, I think it’s meaningless”

"Really? That's right. They chatter all day long. Your Highness has to deal with state affairs all day long and can't stand the noise."

The girl was stunned for a moment, and then her expression returned to normal, and she began to find the reason for Zhu Lang's

After the girl finished speaking, the two returned to silence again. The topic they had finally found was immediately ended by Zhu Lang.
Raising thrush was my predecessor’s hobby, but not Zhu Lang’s.

Zhu Lang is a person from the future. In his previous life, there were so many short videos, movies and games that he couldn't even finish them all. How could he possibly raise a bird?
After coming to this world, he spent all day thinking about how to mobilize troops and seize power from Ding Kuichu and others. He had no time to think about other things.
The two walked in silence for a while, and Wang Yue suddenly stopped and looked at Zhu Lang beside her.

"Did I do something wrong? Why has Your Highness been avoiding me these days?"

"Really? No, that's not the case."

Zhu Lang felt the gaze of the girl beside him, denied it, and answered calmly:

"Princess, you are well-educated and well-mannered. How could I hide from you? But you also know that the recent days are unusual and there are many affairs in the court, so I rarely go to the backyard. Please don't think too much."

Wang Yue listened to the words of the man beside her, and her expression relaxed. But then she thought of something, gritted her teeth, and said:
"Then why hasn't Your Highness even come to my room? The two concubines have urged me many times, saying yes, yes..."

Wang Yue's face suddenly turned red, and after talking for a long time, she still couldn't say the rest of the words.

Zhu Lang looked at Wang Yue's expression and had no idea what she was talking about. He turned his eyes and said
"What are you thinking, Princess? When I was stranded in Yongzhou, I met a miracle doctor in the chaos. I was seriously injured and fell into the hands of the enemy army. I had no medicine or food. Fortunately, the miracle doctor saved me and I was able to recover."

"At that time, the miracle doctor told me that a woman's body needs to be fully developed after the age of 18. If she gets pregnant before the age of 18, she won't be able to raise a fetus if her body is not strong enough."

"If you give birth rashly, both the mother and the child will be at great risk. However, people are ignorant and often let girls marry off early, which has caused the loss of countless women's lives."

"I am also young and full of vigor. If I often go to the princess's room, how can I control myself? The princess is still young. If she gets pregnant at this time, it is very likely to endanger her safety."

"If the princess is really in danger, how can I cope with it? That's why I rarely go to the princess' room."

Zhu Lang straightened his face and said

After Wang Yue heard Zhu Lang's words, a hint of joy flashed in her eyes, and then she said shyly:
"If that's the case, Your Majesty can summon the palace ladies to your favor. I am not a jealous person."

"What are you talking about, Princess? I am deeply indebted to you. You are not pregnant yet, so how can I let others bear the child first? Princess, there is no need to say more about this matter. If Your Majesty continues to urge me on this matter, I will go and explain it to Your Majesty myself."

Zhu Lang said with a serious face

"No need. How can the prince be allowed to say these girlish things? What kind of situation would that be?"

Although Wang Yue refused, she smiled slightly after hearing Zhu Lang's answer.

The girl chuckled, and for a moment she really felt like spring flowers in full bloom. Zhu Lang looked at the cheerful girl, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief. In this life-threatening question and answer, he should be able to get an eight-point score. It seems that the question-and-answer tricks he learned from the future are really useful in this era.

If this answer of mine was posted on a platform in the future, I'm afraid that I would have been dubbed the King of the Sea and washed away by everyone.
The two began to stroll in the garden again, but compared to the beginning, the girl next to them was much more lively and had a bit of a girlish temperament.

"After finishing court affairs, what else does Your Majesty like to do?" Wang Yue suddenly asked curiously.

His Highness used to like raising birds and antiques, but recently his temperament has changed drastically and he has put all these things aside.

She also stayed in the study all day, either meeting this person or that person. Wang Yue didn't know what the prince liked now.

Zhu Lang subconsciously wanted to shout "Original God" and start it, but he thought that he might never see that continent again in this life, so he could only suppress his thoughts.

"I don't have any particular hobbies. If I have to say, it's eating."

"When I'm tired, I want to eat all kinds of things," Zhu Lang replied softly.
"I recently ate a delicious butter shrimp cake. I'll have someone send it to you someday. Princess, you can try it too."

Zhu Lang's eyes turned and he spoke softly. Sure enough, the girl next to him also spoke immediately.

"Then I will learn how to make it and cook it for Your Highness someday."

"You are a princess, how can you do these things in a smoky kitchen?"

Zhu Lang continued to speak, and the girl beside him really showed a hint of dissatisfaction on her face. She continued
"Your Highness, please do not look down on me. Before I married into your family, I not only learned needlework but also cooking at home. I will let Your Highness try my cooking skills someday."

"It turns out that the princess is also good at cooking. She is really a master in both housework and cooking. I will be in for a treat in the future."

"It's just that I have too many affairs in the court to take care of the backyard. Fortunately, the princess can take care of it on my behalf. The princess should still serve the dowager first."

"I see"

The girl responded, her expression was eager to try, and it was obvious that she was going to learn how to make butter shrimp cakes after returning home.

Seeing that the girl seemed to really like cooking, Zhu Lang suddenly thought about it and began to talk about the various rare dishes he had seen in his previous life.

The girl was really attracted by the dishes such as boiled cabbage and Buddha Jumps Over the Wall. She screamed in amazement and thought Zhu Lang was really a foodie who knew so many rare delicacies that she had never heard of.

Zhu Lang looked serious, commenting on various dishes he had never eaten before, but he didn't care whether dishes like Buddha Jumps Over the Wall were available now.
Having found a topic, the two of them continued talking, and before they knew it, an hour had passed.

Zhu Lang looked at the sky and thought it was about time, so he found an excuse to leave, leaving the girl drooling and looking unsatisfied.
Zhu Lang stepped out of the garden, glanced at the flowers in the distance behind him, and then he let out a sigh of relief.
He can deceive Wang Yue, but he can't deceive himself
What he just said was actually all lies. He is not a saint, so how could he not have those thoughts?

It's just that his current situation doesn't allow him to think about those things.

After a series of actions, he now seems to have a part of the military power in his hands, and he is also in a good position.

But in his current situation, if he wanted to deal with Ding Kuichu and regain control of the court, he dared to say that he was 70% sure, but if he wanted to repel the Qing army, he really had no idea.
Not to mention the Ming army, Li Zicheng traveled from north to south, fought from south to north, and finally destroyed the Ming Dynasty with his own hands. His army fought north and south for more than ten years and was definitely the top army of this era.

But even such an elite army was still defeated by the Qing army. If the Qing army was suspected of picking up the missing pieces in Yipianshi, what about the Battle of Tongguan?

The two armies confronted each other, and in the end Li Zicheng was defeated and fled, abandoning his hometown in Guanzhong, fleeing to Hubei, and eventually died in Jiugong Mountain
Even Li Zicheng's group of brave soldiers who conquered the world were eventually defeated by the Qing army. The army under Jiao Lian and Li Mingzhong seemed to be elite, but could they really compare with Li Zicheng's old camp? Zhu Lang had no idea about this.

Even if Jiao Lian's army could match Li Zicheng's elite troops, their combined number of soldiers was only 10,000. Besides, Li Zicheng's elite troops were also defeated.

The reason why Zhu Lang was so deliberate in plotting to seize Guangzhou was because he was not sure whether the strongest lineup of the Ming Dynasty that he had put together could stop the Qing army.

The reason why he wanted to move the capital to Guangzhou was that he was ready to flee to the sea immediately if the situation went wrong.
In fact, he had no idea whether he could stop the Qing army. It was impossible for him, a person from later generations, to judge who would win or lose between the two armies in the cold weapon era based on the situation on paper.
If he really had a relationship with Wang Yue at this time, or even had a child with her, once the Qing army really broke through Guangdong Province, in the face of an emergency, would he take Wang Yue with him in the chaos?

He was just an ordinary person in later generations. He asked himself that he really couldn't do what Emperor Gaozu of Han did when he was in danger, pushing his son out of the car. That was something that only a natural hero could do.

The same reason applies to him not going to the backyard and reducing his contact with the two concubines. He is intentionally reducing his relationship with the people in the backyard.

In this way, once the crisis comes, he can abandon the people in the backyard without hesitation and seize the way out first. They are just strangers to Zhu Lang.
Even if the people in the backyard were captured and killed, he would only need to express his condolences and posthumously confer titles on them. He could even use this to rally the morale of the entire court and form a mourning army, and he himself would not have the slightest psychological burden.
This is the real reason why he deliberately alienated everyone in the backyard.

"That's good. In this troubled time, I am just one of those who struggles to survive. Why would I care about so many things?"

Zhu Lang looked at the sky in the distance, whispered to himself, and the last trace of reluctance in his eyes completely disappeared.
Zhu Lang shook his head, dispelled the thoughts in his mind, and then strode out of the yard. He had more important things to do right now and had no time to waste here.
(End of this chapter)