Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 103 The Little Carpenter

Ciqing Palace was originally the residence of Zhu Changluo and was also the actual Eastern Palace of the Crown Prince during the reign of Emperor Wanli.

After Zhu Changluo ascended the throne, he moved into the Qianqing Palace as per the custom, and the Ciqiong Palace became the residence of the princes, where Zhu Changluo's two sons, Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youjian, lived.

Zhu Youxiao is the eldest son, and Zhu Youjian, who is sixteen and nineteen years old this year, is the fifth son.

Zhu Changluo's offspring were not bad. When he was the crown prince, he had a total of seven sons. However, except the eldest son Zhu Youxiao and the fifth son Zhu Youjian, the others died young. Among them, the third son died at the age of eight, and the second and fourth sons died at the ages of four and five respectively. None of them survived.

In addition, Zhu Changluo had nine daughters, of whom only three survived in the end, namely the sixth daughter Zhu Huiyan, the seventh daughter Zhu Huijing, and the eighth daughter Zhu Huiti.

Now one of Zhu Changluo's concubines is eight months pregnant and will give birth in two months. As for whether the baby will be a boy or a girl, it is unknown.

In a side hall of the Ciqing Palace, the eldest prince Zhu Youxiao was fiddling with a chair with great interest, with a number of carpentry tools placed beside him. This chair was made by him personally, with a simple shape and exquisite workmanship, and was not much inferior to those made by the fine craftsmen of the palace.

"Young man, please take a break, wipe the sweat off your face and have a drink of water." Seeing Zhu Youxiao stop and stand there looking at the chair he had just finished, Li Jinzhong, who was serving on the side, hurriedly handed him a sweat towel and said attentively.

Then he took the towel, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and stretched his muscles.

Carpentry is a physical labor, and the amount of exercise is not light. Zhu Youxiao is only a 16-year-old boy. He worked on this chair for several days and now it is finally completed. Looking at his achievements, Zhu Youxiao is very happy.

"Li Banban, how about my cooking skills?" Zhu Youxiao threw the handkerchief to Li Jinzhong, took the tea and took a sip. Being a young man, he spoke in a rather boastful tone.

Li Jinzhong gave Zhu Youxiao a thumbs up and praised him without thinking: "This is my skill. I have never been to school, so I can't say anything nice, but I think that among all the ancient masters, only the legendary Lu Ban can be compared to me. In a few years, it will be no problem for me to surpass Lu Ban."

"Hahaha, Li Banban is over the top, over the top..." Zhu Youxiao laughed and shook his head. Who is this Lu Ban? But he is the ancestor of all carpenters in the world, a mythical figure. No matter how complacent Zhu Youxiao is, he can't think that he can beat Lu Ban now.

However, Li Jinzhong's words still made him happy. He had learned how much his skills had improved over the years. There were countless fine artifacts in the palace. Zhu Youxiao had been born in the palace since he was a child and had seen many fine things. He was still somewhat proud of the craftsmanship of the fine craftsmen in the palace and his current craftsmanship.

Although he was definitely not as good as Lu Ban now, he was still young. A 16-year-old boy had such skills. He was probably the only one in the world who had such ability. After ten or twenty years, as he accumulated experience, it would be no problem to surpass Lu Ban. Zhu Youxiao had enough confidence in this.

He sat down, took another sip of tea, put the teacup aside, and then Zhu Youxiao asked.

"Li Banban, how is Father doing these days?"

"This..." Li Jinzhong subconsciously looked around and saw that there were only himself and Zhu Youxiao in the palace, so he lowered his voice and said, "The emperor has been staying in the harem every night these days. It is said that there are many women who visit him every night. Moreover, the emperor likes wine now, and he is almost drunk every day."

"What about the morning court? Didn't your father go?" Zhu Youxiao frowned slightly after hearing this.

Li Jinzhong shook his head and whispered to Zhu Youxiao that all important affairs of the court were now handled by the cabinet and the ministries. Emperor Taichang didn't care about these at all and just spent his days leisurely in the harem.

"How could your Majesty be like this? Didn't your Majesty try to persuade your Majesty?" Zhu Youxiao asked again.

Li Jinzhong said, "The queen pestered the emperor a few days ago, wanting him to make her the queen. But the emperor has only promised her the title of imperial concubine, and the ministers mean that the late emperor's funeral is not over yet, and the concubines in the harem have not been posthumously honored, so it is not appropriate to make her the queen or the imperial concubine at this time."

"Because of this matter, the queen has been angry with the emperor these days and has not gone to see the emperor."

"How can this be...?" Zhu Youxiao said this in his heart, but his facial expression did not change much.

As the eldest son of Emperor Taichang and the eldest grandson of Emperor Wanli, Zhu Youxiao is now sixteen years old, which is the age for ordinary families to get married and have children.

However, the life of the eldest prince was not as easy as he had imagined, because his father Zhu Changluo had never been favored by his grandfather Emperor Wanli, and his position as crown prince was not stable, which also implicated Zhu Youxiao.

According to the royal family rules, Zhu Youxiao, as the eldest grandson of the emperor, should have started school at the age of six, and no later than 13. But the problem was that Wanli and his son Zhu Changluo had a bad relationship. Wanli did not like Zhu Changluo, and he did the same to his grandson. Instead of letting him go to school and hiring a teacher to teach him, he kept delaying the matter until Wanli's death. Zhu Youxiao and his brother Zhu Youjian were not able to officially go to school.

This situation has never happened in the Ming Dynasty. Ordinary princes would not be like this. However, it was incredible that Zhu Youshou, the eldest son of the crown prince, was not arranged to go to school until he was sixteen years old.

Although he never went to school, Zhu Youxiao was not illiterate. After all, he grew up in the East Palace, so it was not difficult for him to learn to read and write in private. The so-called failure to go to school only meant that he did not receive a substantial systematic education, but it did not mean that Zhu Youxiao was illiterate.

Zhu Youxiao was not illiterate. On the contrary, he was very smart. Compared with his father, the current Emperor Taichang Zhu Changluo, Zhu Youxiao's IQ was extremely high. It would not be an exaggeration to call him a "young genius".

While in the Eastern Palace, Zhu Youxiao not only learned to read, but also read a lot of books. Although these books were different from those read by real royal children and lacked systematic training, and there were also many miscellaneous books among them, Zhu Youxiao learned a lot through these.

In addition, Zhu Changluo was good to his eldest son. Since Wanli did not allow him to go to school, he often taught him privately. From this point of view, although Zhu Youxiao did not go to school, he did not receive education and the emperor's training. In fact, he was much more mature than ordinary teenagers.

In addition, Zhu Youxiao was extremely intelligent. Not to mention other things, this could be seen from his superb carpentry skills which he learned without any teacher.

As a prince, at this age, he has a skill that ordinary craftsmen cannot match. Is it possible for a fool to do it? The answer is of course no, which is enough to prove Zhu Youxiao's wisdom and strong hands-on ability.

Although carpentry was just a hobby for Zhu Youxiao, he was not the only prince who knew how to do carpentry. A few days after Zhu Changluo ascended the throne, the sharp-minded Zhu Youxiao felt that something was wrong. His father's temper changed too quickly.

Perhaps it was because of the decades of repression that Zhu Changluo had been feeling so pent up. Now that he was no longer under pressure and had become the emperor, Zhu Changluo released all his desires without any scruples, and suddenly Zhu Youxiao didn't recognize his father.

Zhu Changluo is only 39 years old, which is the prime of his life.

But now he is addicted to alcohol and sex every day, no matter how healthy his body is, he can't handle it!
Furthermore, although leaving all the court affairs to the ministers might seem to be no problem on the surface, the young Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but feel secretly worried.

Although he was not favored by Wanli, and as the eldest grandson he had never met his grandfather many times, he had been in the palace for many years since he was a child, so he knew something about the conflicts between his imperial grandfather and the civil service group, as well as some of the tit-for-tat they had done. As he grew older and became more sensible, he also vaguely understood why Wanli did this.

Hearing what Li Jinzhong said, Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but worry about his father. First, he was worried that if he handed over power to the ministers, the imperial power would be suppressed after the civil service group became powerful. Second, he was worried about his father's health. As a son, he knew that Zhu Changluo's health was not very good. If he continued to suffer like this, not to mention his already poor health, even a strong person would not be able to bear it.

In addition, there is the Empress. The so-called Empress is Li Xianshi, who is also known as the Western Li. Li Xianshi is Zhu Changluo's favorite concubine and the one with the most say in the Eastern Palace. In addition to these, Li Xianshi is also Zhu Youxiao's adoptive mother. After Zhu Youxiao's biological mother died, Zhu Changluo gave the eldest son to Li Xianshi for upbringing.

Li Jinzhong who was beside him was actually also a eunuch in Li Xianshi's palace. However, after becoming Li Xianshi's adopted son, Li Jinzhong became closer to Zhu Youxiao, and eventually became Zhu Youxiao's close companion.

In Zhu Youxiao's opinion, it was incomprehensible that at this time, Concubine Li did not dissuade her father from staying away from women and alcohol, but instead got angry with her father over the empty title of empress.

Her father, the emperor, did not have a real crown princess. With the status of Li Xianshi in her father's heart, as long as she waited patiently, she would have a good chance of becoming a royal concubine first and then the queen. Her father had just ascended the throne, and the concubines in the harem of her grandfather, including the noble concubine Zheng who had the final say in the harem, had not been canonized yet. Why was Li Xianshi so anxious at this time?

"No! We can't go on like this!" Zhu Youxiao pondered in his heart. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that he couldn't let his father continue to ruin his body like this. How could his body bear being a sex man every night?

As a son, I have to persuade him, especially since my father had promised me privately before he ascended the throne that he would enthrone me as the crown prince after the late emperor's funeral was over next month.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao stood up immediately and said to Li Jinzhong beside him: "Change my clothes for me. I want to go to the Qianqing Palace to pay my respects to my father!"

Li Jinzhong was stunned. He didn't expect Zhu Youxiao to suddenly want to go to the Qianqing Palace. However, since the young master had spoken, he, as a servant, would do it immediately. He quickly agreed and took out the robe to help Zhu Youxiao change his clothes. Just as he was about to leave, a young eunuch suddenly ran in. The young eunuch ran in a panic and was tripped by the threshold at the door, almost falling flat on his face.

"How dare you!" Li Jinzhong said angrily, "How dare you panic like this in the palace? Someone, come! Take this damned servant away for us!"

"Young Master! Young Master, spare my life!" The eunuch knelt down in fear, kowtowed and said, "It's not that I don't know the rules, but I have an urgent matter to report. The Empress of the Qianqing Palace asks me to go quickly. The Emperor... The Emperor has fainted..."

(End of this chapter)