I am a prince in Zhutian Films

Chapter 415: Born in the same quilt, died in the same hole

The imperial court has never been short of people. Not to mention the loss of Xiao Qinyan, even if a few more husbands were lost, they could be quickly replaced.

For example: Ke Zheng was promoted.

Although he was not a prime minister, the position of Minister of Personnel also made everyone in the Ke family feel deeply moved, especially his son Ke Zhao.

It is worth mentioning that according to the historical prototype, Ke Zheng originally had no son, but thanks to the fact that he accepted Zhao Wei as his disciple in his early years and cured some of Ke Zheng's illnesses with medicated food, Ke Zheng also had his own biological children.

Ke Zhao is seventeen years old this year. He has just taken part in the Spring Imperial Examination and won the third place.

Originally, he had never thought that he would be able to pass the imperial examination this year. After all, in the previous war between Song and Liao, his father had stabbed Zhao Wei in the back and almost made Zhao Wei miss the position of crown prince.

If it were him, he would definitely retaliate.

However, what he didn't expect was that Zhao Wei not only did not look for opportunities to suppress their Ke family, but instead reused his father and appointed him as the third place in the imperial examination.

Prince Han's Palace.

Zhao Wei was practicing martial arts with his son when Ke Zhao and his three companions walked in, led by Shuangxi.

"Your Highness."

"We are not in the court now, call me brother."

Ke Zhao was stunned for a moment, then happily changed his name, which made Zhao Wei nod in satisfaction and said with a smile: "Well, not bad, Tanhualang, better than I was back then."

As he spoke, he turned to look at the two young men following Ke Zhao, one was about seventeen or eighteen years old, and the other was only about ten years old.

The former Zhao Wei knew that the third place in the second class of this year's exam, Mei Yaochen from the Xuancheng Mei family, was known as the founder of Song Dynasty poetry. He wrote good articles and was quite favored by the examiners of this year's spring examination.

It's just that Zhao Heng was not in Bian Jing city for this spring examination, so everything was in charge of Zhao Wei, who paid more attention to pragmatism, so Mei Yaochen got third place in the second class. If Zhao Heng had chosen him, Mei Yaochen would definitely have a chance to compete for the first place.

As for the latter, Zhao Wei really didn't know him. However, before he could ask, Ke Zhao introduced him, "Brother, this is Mei Yaochen from the Xuancheng Mei family, also a Jinshi this year. As for this boy, he is my father's disciple, Han Qi."

Han Qi, is this the Han Qi he knows?
Zhao Wei was shocked, but he did not show anything. He smiled and said, "I know Mei Yaochen. He is the third in the second class of this year's exam. His writing is brilliant, but in my opinion, he seems a little empty. Go back and ask your uncle Mei Xun for advice. Your uncle has been an official in the local area for many years. He is honest and pragmatic. Now he has been transferred back to the capital. I hope he can continue to work hard."

Hearing this, Mei Yaochen was immediately delighted: "Yes, Your Highness, I will definitely convey your message."

Compared to Mei Yaochen, the founder of Song poetry, Zhao Wei was more interested in Han Qi. He wanted to know if Han Qi was the same Han Qi in history, so he asked indirectly, "How did you accept him as your disciple?"

"Brother, you may not know that his father is the late Right Counselor, a man from Nanyang County. We are old friends."

It matches, it matches, it is indeed the Han Qi in history. However, the Han Qi in history did not seem to have Kou Zhun as his teacher. Unexpectedly, the Han Qi in this world has Ke Zheng as his teacher.

Zhao Wei thought so in his heart, but said: "So that's it, it turns out that he is the son of Doctor Han. I was wondering why the teacher, who is so busy, suddenly accepted a disciple."

"This... Actually, father thought that after the peace talks, he would be idle at home. In addition, father and Uncle Han are good friends, and Han Qi is really smart, so father accepted him as his disciple."

"Idle at home?"

Zhao Wei was stunned at first, then suddenly realized and said with a wry smile: "In the teacher's eyes, am I such a vengeful person?"

"No, no, absolutely not." Ke Zhao shook his head and said, "Brother, of course you are not, but... Father can't get over it in his heart. In the war between the two countries, Father has always been sorry for you."

"There's nothing to be sorry about. I understand your thoughts. In fact, when I saw so many Song soldiers die on the battlefield, I actually thought about giving up and negotiating with the Liao people. But I have dealt with the Tanguts before, and I think I understand foreigners better. They are a group of vicious wolves that can never be fed. Only by beating them hard and killing them can our Song Dynasty be truly stable."

Zhao Wei was a little emotional for a moment, and finally smiled and said, "Forget it, why am I telling you all this, let's go, I will go and talk to the teacher myself."

Seeing Zhao Wei preparing to leave, Zhao Ye, who was now quite clingy to him, quickly called him "Dad".

It was obvious that the little guy wanted to go along.

Zhao Wei naturally had no objection. He picked up his son and took Ke Zhao and the other two to go straight to Duke Lai.

Ke Zheng sincerely apologized for opposing Zhao Wei's decision to start the war. After all, judging from the results, Zhao Wei's decision was undoubtedly correct. If the peace talks had been successful, there would not have been the grand event of recovering the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun and making the Liao people submit to him.

However, Ke Zheng also expressed that he had no regrets. If it happened again, he would still oppose Zhao Wei starting a war.

In short, this private meeting allowed the master and disciple to reach a reconciliation.

Because of the reconciliation between the two, the court became more harmonious.

After Zhao Heng returned to the capital, Zhao Wei also petitioned to promote Ke Zheng to the position of prime minister. However, Zhao Heng had never liked Ke Zheng, so naturally he did not grant his approval. However, in order to give face to his son, he still promoted Ke Zheng to the position of Sansi Envoy.

After that, I don't know what was wrong with Zhao Heng, but he actually handed over all the court affairs to Zhao Wei and started to be lazy.

Unfortunately, Zhao Wei was also a lazy person, and he also had the task of listening to music in the brothel to do, so in the end he had to trouble Liu Wan.

You know, in the original history, Queen Liu E would rule the country from behind the scenes for more than ten years after Zhao Heng's death. She can be said to be the most famous queen in the history of the Song Dynasty.

There is a comment to evaluate her: She has the talent of Lu and Wu, but without their evil.

Of course, this is the official history's evaluation of Empress Liu E, but in the world of Meng Hualu, Liu Wan is Liu E. Perhaps Liu Wan is not as good as Liu E in official history, but she definitely has the ability.

Zhao Heng didn't say anything about Zhao Wei handing over most of the government affairs to Liu Wan. After all, he often did so when he was busy practicing Taoism in recent years. However, he had some opinions about Liu Wan's power in the court.

However, this had no impact on Liu Wan's power, so Liu Wan pretended not to hear it.

Time passed year by year, and in the fifteenth year of Qianxing, Zhao Heng came to the end of his life.

Compared with the original trajectory, Zhao Heng lived a full ten years longer, and after his death, Zhao Wei naturally ascended the throne.

Change of era name: Tiansheng.

Perhaps because she had Zhao Wei, her outstanding biological son, Liu Wan did not seem to be so keen on power. After Zhao Wei ascended the throne, she completely returned the government to Zhao Wei.

After that, Liu Wan served as the empress dowager peacefully. She either played cards with Concubine Yang Shufei and Concubine Cao Xianfei, or taught her grandchildren. She lived a very carefree life.

That’s right, grandchildren.

During these more than ten years, Zhao Pan'er gave birth to two sons and one daughter for Zhao Wei. Now Zhao Wei has three sons and one daughter, and his eldest son Zhao Ye is engaged to Gu Qianfan's daughter.

There are also Sun Sanniang, Song Yinzhang, Zhang Haohao and others, who also have their own children. It must be mentioned that Sun Sanniang and Du Changfeng's daughter was born on the same day of the same month of the same year as Zhang Haohao's son, so the two families arranged a marriage for the children.

In addition, it is worth mentioning Gao Hui. After the border army returned to Beijing, she unexpectedly got together with the heroic savior Li Junxin because of an accident, and saved the suppressed Gao family. Gao Hu also had a good ending.

The second year of Tiansheng, summer.

Early that morning, Liu Wan was practicing Tai Chi with her grandchildren in the courtyard when Concubine Yang Shufei hurried in.

"Sister, you have to help me. I only have Ling'er as my daughter, and I really can't bear to see her marry far away and suffer."

Looking at Concubine Yang Shu, no, to be more precise, Concubine Yang Tai, who looked anxious and about to cry, Liu Wan was a little confused: "Ling'er's marriage hasn't been decided yet, why is she going to marry far away?"

"You don't know yet? The Liao people sent someone to propose marriage, wanting to marry the princess of our Song Dynasty. The princess who is of marriageable age and has not yet married is Ling'er..."

Before he finished speaking, Liu Wan interrupted him and asked, "The emperor said that Ling'er was allowed to marry?"

"That's not true."

As soon as these words came out, Liu Wan rolled her eyes and said, "Since there is no such thing, why are you so anxious? The emperor has long said that the marriages of our royal children are decided by themselves. Don't worry, the emperor will not let Ling'er go to marry." "Really?"

Before Liu Wan could speak, the second oldest Zhao Kai smiled and said, "Aunt, don't worry. Father will definitely not agree to the marriage."

"How do you know?" Liu Wan asked.

"Because the night the Liao people presented the letter, the emperor was very angry. Because of this incident, the emperor also set a national policy of no marriage, no compensation, no cession of territory, and no tribute. I guess it will be promulgated throughout the country." Zhao Kai said proudly: "In addition to this, the emperor is also collecting food and grass to go to war with the Liao people. I heard from my eldest brother that this time he wants to directly destroy the Liao Kingdom."

"Are we going to go to war with the Liao people again?"

Over the years, the Song Dynasty and the Liao people have fought, but they were just minor frictions and were generally very harmonious.

Because of the peaceful and stable environment, the Liao people developed quite well and had gradually recovered to the level of the Liao Shengzong period. However, compared with the Song Dynasty, they were still far behind.

The Song Dynasty today is no longer the Song Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Shengzong of Liao.

More than 20 years ago, officials of the Song Dynasty were afraid of fighting, but now everyone is warlike.

It was because of the domestic reforms that the Song Dynasty was unable to spare time for the time being, otherwise it would have launched a full-scale war against the Liao people long ago.

Liu Wan was not worried at all that the Song Dynasty would lose; she was worried about something else.

"Is your father not going to lead the army in person? Although the domestic reform is coming to an end, the end is crucial and your father cannot be absent."

"Grandma, don't worry. It's just the Liao Kingdom. There's no need for your father to lead the army in person."

Just Liao Kingdom? !
These four words stunned Liu Wan and Concubine Yang.

Then he suddenly realized that the Liao Kingdom, which once frightened countless Song people, was now just a slightly larger ant to the Song Dynasty.

As long as the Song Dynasty wanted to destroy it, it would be just a matter of raising its foot.

In fact, this is true. It took the Song Dynasty less than a year to destroy the Liao Dynasty. In the summer of the third year of Tiansheng, the Liao Dynasty became history.

The demise of the Liao Dynasty also marked the beginning of the Song Dynasty's path to foreign wars.

Zhao Wei had been on the throne for twenty-three years and had been fighting for a full twenty years until the territory of the Song Dynasty expanded to the territory of China in his memory. He then stopped conquering. As for those territories that had not been occupied, he left it to his son to occupy.

In the following years, Zhao Wei focused entirely on domestic people's livelihood.

Thirty years into Tiansheng, Liu Wan also came to the end of her life.

After holding a national mourning for Liu Wan, Zhao Wei abdicated the throne to Crown Prince Zhao Kai.

That’s right, the crown prince was not his eldest son Zhao Ye, but his second son Zhao Kai.

The reason why it was Zhao Kai was because the three siblings Zhao Ye, Zhao Yu and Zhao Jing all went to sea and established their own country overseas.

In order to establish the British Empire that Zhao Wei once mentioned, the three brothers and sisters often came back to poach talents and took away many pillars of society.

For example: Han Qi, who visited the Prince Han’s Mansion in his early years, and Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi, who were famous in history.

In addition to the three brothers and sisters, there was also Zhao Zhen, the Emperor Renzong in history, and Zhao Qi, born to Concubine Gao, who also established their own countries far away from the Central Plains.

As for Zhao Wei, after abdicating the throne, he took Zhao Pan'er back to the former Prince of Han's Palace and enjoyed his old age.

During the thirty years of his reign, he was very busy in the first twenty years, busy with domestic military and political affairs, and busy with external expansion. It was not until Zhao Kai had matured that he began to train his son, gradually delegate power, and take charge of the general direction himself.

Zhao Wei's abdication caused quite a stir in the Song Dynasty, but fortunately Zhao Kai had already been involved in government affairs. Especially in the four or five years after Zhao Wei stopped external expansion, it was basically Zhao Kai who handled state affairs.

In addition, during Zhao Wei's reign, especially in the first three years after he ascended the throne, he was extremely murderous and killed many people who opposed his reforms, that is, the scholar class. Therefore, compared with the "brutal" emperor Zhao Wei, most scholars instead admired the quite benevolent and well-known Crown Prince Zhao Kai.

Zhao Kai's accession to the throne naturally did not cause any chaos, and people from all walks of life strongly supported and maintained his rule.

From then on, the Song Dynasty also began to use the Qiyuan calendar, which meant the beginning of a new era.

In fact, if he had a choice, Zhao Wei didn't want to kill people, but he wanted to implement reforms in the country, and he couldn't do it without killing people, so he could only follow the example of the later Emperor Hongwu, but he was more restrained.

Although killing people is not a good thing, it must be said that it was precisely because he dared to kill and frightened the nobles all over the world that the reform was successfully implemented and the people of the Song Dynasty lived a peaceful and prosperous life.

If Zhao Wei used force to stop war and implemented military rule, then Zhao Kai implemented civil rule. The new emperor Zhao Kai was more respected by court officials and the people.

He himself is a bad guy, and his son is a good person, this is also what Zhao Wei wants to see.

After abdicating, Zhao Wei contentedly became the emperor emeritus and never touched state affairs again. He either stayed in Prince Han's mansion with Zhao Pan'er, or took Zhao Pan'er to visit his son and daughter overseas.

Time flies, the years are like a shuttle.

It has been twenty years since Zhao Kai ascended the throne. Zhao Pan'er, who is nearly ninety years old, has finally succumbed to the passage of time and is on the verge of death.

Zhao Pan'er said that she didn't want to die in bed, so Zhao Wei gave her a burst of internal energy, allowing her to regain a last glimmer of life and recover a lot of strength.

"Your Majesty, I have nothing to be proud of in my life. The only thing I am proud of is marrying you. The only skill I can show off is making tea."

In the pavilion, Zhao Pan'er leaned on Zhao Wei's arms: "Sir, let Pan'er make you another cup of tea."

Zhao Pan'er had been married to him for more than fifty years and was devoted to him. She arranged all the chores for him so that he could concentrate on conquering the world and governing the country.

It can be said that half of his success was due to Zhao Paner, and Zhao Wei has always remembered it.

Now that Zhao Pan'er was about to leave him, Zhao Wei's eyes suddenly became red, and he seemed to have used up all his strength before he uttered the word "OK".

On the other hand, Zhao Paner, with her head full of silver hair and traces of time on her face, showed a smile like that of a little girl, and happily made tea for Zhao Wei for the last time.

After Zhao Wei finished his last cup of tea, he sat in the pavilion with Zhao Pan'er, admiring the last sunset.

"Sir, you once said that we would be together for life and never separate. I may have said something wrong. I'm sorry, sir, Pan'er is sleepy."

"Go to sleep, Pan'er, we will never be separated. I will always be by your side."

Zhao Wei hugged Zhao Pan'er and hummed a ballad softly, as if he was coaxing Zhao Pan'er to sleep.

Zhao Pan'er, with a smile on her face, slowly closed her eyes, leaned in Zhao Wei's arms, and left this noisy world.

Until the end, she had a happy smile on her face.

"Pan'er, have a safe trip. Don't be afraid. I'm right beside you."

In this way, Zhao Wei stayed with Zhao Pan'er until the dusk faded, and then closed his eyes.

Zhao Pan'er was empress for thirty years. She was virtuous and well-known, and was deeply loved by people and officials all over the world. Zhao Wei was a legend throughout his life, although his reputation was at two extremes: ordinary people called him a sage emperor unprecedented in history, while the gentry and bureaucrats called him a tyrant.

But no matter what the evaluation is, no one will deny that it was he who restored the prestige of the Han people and made the Song Dynasty a dynasty that surpassed the Han and Tang dynasties. His achievements are enough to be unprecedented in history.

The simultaneous deaths of the two people made the whole world sad and the whole country mourned.

Moreover, Zhao Wei had no other women in his life except Zhao Pan'er, and they died at the same time. They loved each other all their lives and truly lived and died together. Therefore, their love was praised by countless people...

(End of this chapter)