Red Mansion: After being expelled from the family, I was granted the title of Marquis of Mobei

Chapter 147 Heart-to-heart talk between king and minister
After hearing this, Emperor Yongping looked at Jia Jue and said with some emotion.

"This is your first child, but you couldn't be by your wife's side when she gave birth."

"It was my fault, really, for sending you to the Western Sea."

Jia Jue then waved his hand and said.

"Without a country, how can there be a home? I am entrusted with the command by Your Majesty and dare not not do my best."

"Furthermore, I have family members in my household to take care of my wife, and my parents-in-law also help with the household chores."

Emperor Yongping said gently.

"No matter what, not being able to witness your child come into this world is a regret for you."

"Don't worry, I will make it up to you."

"Furthermore, you fought very well in the Battle of the Western Sea. The barbarian tribes of the Western Sea were completely pacified, and 100,000 troops were stationed there to implement the policy of land reclamation. The vast Western Sea is now firmly under the control of our Great Zhou. From now on, our Great Zhou will have no more border troubles. I am very pleased."

Jia Jue said after a moment of thought.

"Now that I have pacified the Western Sea, there must be quite a few rumors circulating in the court."

Emperor Yongping snorted coldly.

"Hmph, ignore those poor pedants. They're all useless trash who just spout off useless Confucian writings."

"Saying that too much killing is against the natural order is all nonsense."

“Barbarians fear power but do not cherish virtue. Since they are difficult to teach and tame, the only solution is to eliminate them completely.”

"Alright, let's not talk about these depressing things anymore, let's get down to business."

"Your wife gave birth to a son ten days ago. I have already named him Zhou Xianping and included him in the imperial family register."

“In the Imperial Clan Court, you were originally of my lineage, and now it is only right that your child should also be of my lineage.”

"Young man, I ask you, what do you think the future of my Great Zhou Dynasty should be?"

Jia Jue asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Your Majesty, why do you say such a thing? Our Great Zhou is now at peace throughout the land, why is Your Majesty so confused?"

Emperor Yongping sighed and said.

"A country without a crown prince is like a country without a pillar. Now that both princes are gone, I have no successor."

"It is certain that the court officials will then persuade me to adopt a member of the imperial family to continue the imperial lineage."

"But I don't want to do that."

Jia Jue said after thinking for a moment.

"Is Your Majesty worried that the successor will be unable to implement Your Majesty's governing philosophy, thus causing Your Majesty's painstakingly implemented reforms, which have just begun to show results, to be destroyed in the future?"

Emperor Yongping nodded slightly and said.

"That's one aspect. Another aspect is that if a minor branch of the family enters the major branch, and the future ruler intends to return to his original branch, then the situation will be reversed, and the minor branch will become the major branch."

"In that case, what about me and all the previous emperors?"

"Moreover, the succeeding emperor is supported by his ministers, and he will inevitably be subject to their control. If he is also entangled in the civil service system, chaos will surely ensue."

"A single mishap could jeopardize the fate of the Great Zhou Dynasty."

Upon hearing this, a shocking thought flashed through Jia Jue's mind, and he then tentatively looked at Emperor Yongping and said.

"Your Majesty wouldn't be planning... planning..."

Seeing Jia Jue's reaction, Emperor Yongping nodded slightly and said.

"It seems you guessed it. That's right. I don't plan to adopt any more children from the imperial clan. When Xianping gets a little older, I plan to make him the Crown Prince directly, and you will act as regent."

Jia Jue said after hesitating for a moment.

"Your Majesty, this is not appropriate. Although I am a member of the imperial clan, I am not of royal blood. This will invite criticism from the court officials."

Emperor Yongping looked at Jia Jue meaningfully and said.

"Alright, kid, I'm not testing you, so why are you putting on such an act?"

"In this palace coup, whether it was me, Consort Yue, or Prince Zhongshun, we were all losers. They lost, and I didn't win either."

"But you are different; you are the biggest winner of this palace coup."

"Do you know that before I knew about the Empress and Consort Yue's disloyal acts, I was thinking about how to ensure that my offspring would be able to sit on the throne after I passed away?"

"After all, your power is too great, not to mention your own prestige in the Zhenbei Army, nor your control over the Imperial Guards of the Capital."

"Your father-in-law, the Duke of Yingguo, has such high prestige in the army, and you are also very close to Lin Ruhai, for whom you have been very kind."

"Just the three of you together, no matter who is on the throne, as long as you want to, you can make the emperor powerless."

"If one wants to go further, seizing the throne is not a difficult task."

"I have been struggling with how to arrange things for you."

“But I have thought about it for a long time. Even if you are willing to live a carefree life, the new emperor will not be able to trust you.”

“I know you are not the kind of person who will just sit and wait to die.”

"So whoever succeeds me after me will inevitably face you in battle sooner or later."

"My reason has always told me that I should take advantage of the fact that I can still control the situation and find a way to get rid of you, so as to prevent future troubles for my descendants."

"But to be honest, I am really reluctant to part with you. Your talent and your personality are just like mine when I was young."

"Seeing you is like seeing my younger self."

“Originally, I might have hesitated for a long time, but the appearance of the Night Banquet painting has relieved me of these concerns.”

"Before you left the capital to mobilize troops at the Jiangnan camp, I only instructed you to settle your family, but I did not tell you the specific reasons."

"Now I can tell you, all of these things are related to the secrets hidden in the Night Banquet Painting."

"I imagine you're curious about this as well."

Jia Jue said after hesitating for a moment.

"Your Majesty, these are things that I should not know."

Emperor Yongping waved his hand and said.

"I intend to entrust the vast land of the Great Zhou to you. What secrets could you possibly be keeping from me?"

"Besides, these secrets are weighing on my heart, and I am in great pain. It would be a good thing for me to have someone to confide in."

“You are a smart man, so you should be able to guess something. Prince Zhongshun is my own younger brother.”

"After I ascended the throne, although he had no real power, he enjoyed endless wealth and honor."

"Yet he still followed Consort Yue in rebellion, risking such a great deal. You can probably guess why."

Jia Jue was at a loss for words after hearing this.

If Prince Chungshun were to say that he rebelled alone, it would not be difficult to understand and would be plausible.

After all, Zhu Gaochi, the famous Prince of Han from the Ming Dynasty, once said that from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the present day, the vast historical records can be summed up in just four words: vying to become emperor. It's perfectly normal for Prince Zhongshun to be so eager for advancement and to experience the feeling of being the supreme ruler.

However, the fact that Prince Zhongshun helped Consort Yue rebel is quite surreal.

After all, even if the rebellion succeeds, it will be Consort Yue's son, Zhou Yunwen, who will ascend to the throne, while Prince Zhongshun will have wasted his time and remain in the same position.

So what was he after taking such a big risk?

Therefore, there is only one possibility: that the second prince, Zhou Yunwen, born to Consort Yue, was not Emperor Yongping's son, but rather the son of Prince Zhongshun.

Only in this way can we explain why Prince Chungshun was willing to take such a big risk.

However, Jia Jue didn't know how to say this to Emperor Yongping. He couldn't very well just say, "Your Majesty, look, this hat is round and green."

Seeing that Jia Jue remained silent, Emperor Yongping spoke calmly.

"Now that things have come to this, there's nothing to hide. Consort Yue and Prince Zhongshun had an affair, and the second prince is a bastard. That's why they rebelled after I made the eldest prince the crown prince."

"With your intelligence, you could have come up with this idea; I'm not surprised at all."

"What really intrigues you is why I ignored the Empress and the Crown Prince, letting them both die in the palace coup."

"And this is the secret recorded in the Night Banquet Painting."

"The Night Banquet Painting is something that circulated from the residence of Prince Yizhong back then."

"When the princes were vying for the throne, the Crown Prince and Prince Yizhong were the most powerful. They were not only favored by the Retired Emperor, but also had powerful maternal clans as their main force."

"But Prince Yizhong acted erratically, and he was the first to be eliminated."

"When the Prince Yizhong's mansion was raided back then, I personally led the raid."

“At that time, Prince Yizhong committed suicide in his study, leaving me a letter that said, ‘Although I lost, you will not win either.’”

"At the time, I only felt that Prince Yizhong's words meant that although he failed to seize the throne, he thought that I would eventually lose in the battle for the throne and follow in his footsteps."

"It wasn't until I obtained the secrets of the Night Banquet painting that I understood his meaning."

"Young man, I told you before that I had a beloved woman who later died because she was involved in the struggle for the throne. Do you remember?"

After a brief recollection, Jia Jue said.

"I remember Your Majesty saying that the woman was pregnant, but in the end, both she and her unborn child died."

Emperor Yongping sighed and said.

"That's right, the events depicted in the Night Banquet painting are related to this."

"The reason she was implicated back then was that Empress Shen leaked her whereabouts to Prince Yizhong, and Empress Shen was jealous of her."

Jia Jue said after a moment of thought.

"If that were all, His Majesty wouldn't have harbored murderous intentions towards Empress Shen and the First Prince."

Emperor Yongping nodded slightly and said.

"Yes, if that were all, I certainly wouldn't be so heartless."

"But the key issue is that Prince Yizhong later used this matter as leverage to have an affair with Empress Shen, and at the same time, he had Empress Shen secretly drug me, causing me to lose my ability to have children."

Upon hearing this, Jia Jue immediately understood.

No wonder Emperor Yongping abandoned Empress Shen and the Crown Prince in one fell swoop.

It turns out that even the Crown Prince's bloodline cannot be guaranteed to be pure; Empress Shen actually got involved with Prince Yizhong, an enemy of Emperor Yongping.

For Emperor Yongping, although the crown prince might be his own son, he would not take that risk.

If a bastard were to actually ascend the throne, Emperor Yongping would die with his eyes wide open in disbelief.

It is certain that Emperor Yongping had already begun his scheme from the moment he obtained the secret of the Night Banquet painting.

Although the painting of the banquet did not mention Consort Yue, the fact that Consort Yue could still get pregnant after Empress Shen had given Emperor Yongping a drug to sterilize her was something that made Emperor Yongping suspicious.

Therefore, Emperor Yongping chose to first appoint the eldest prince as the crown prince in order to test Consort Yue's intentions.

If the Second Prince was truly not Emperor Yongping's son, then if Consort Yue intended to commit treason, she would definitely have contacted the biological father of this bastard.

As Emperor Yongping had anticipated, Consort Yue, upon learning that her son was leaving the capital to take up his fief, secretly contacted Prince Zhongshun within just two days.

From that time on, Emperor Yongping already knew what was going on between Consort Yue and Prince Zhongshun.

What followed was simple. Emperor Yongping secretly watched Prince Zhongshun and Consort Yue put on their show, and at the same time, taking advantage of the Battle of the Western Sea, he secretly sent out Jia Jue, his most capable general, and made sure that Consort Yue would know about this.

At the same time, Emperor Yongping also transferred 30,000 imperial guards and 50,000 troops from the capital to leave the capital city's military forces depleted, thereby dispelling Prince Zhongshun and Consort Yue's concerns and prompting them to take a desperate gamble and launch a coup.

Emperor Yongping spent several months playing a strategic game, eliminating all those who were disloyal to him while also preventing scandals within the royal family from being exposed.

It must be said that in terms of political maneuvering, Emperor Yongping, who finally ascended to the throne after a fierce battle for succession, completely overwhelmed Consort Yue.

After figuring out the cause and effect, Jia Jue felt a little more sympathy for Emperor Yongping.

As the ruler of the vast Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Yongping was betrayed by his wife, resulting in neither of his two sons being his own, and he was also rendered infertile. Emperor Yongping's life was undoubtedly tragic.

Who could have imagined that it was Empress Shen's jealousy that triggered a series of tragedies for Emperor Yongping, ultimately leading him to kill all his closest relatives.

After expressing his feelings, Jia Jue looked at Emperor Yongping and said.

"Your Majesty, please take care of your health and do not lose heart."

Emperor Yongping waved his hand and said.

"Now that things have come to this, what else is there for me to be upset about?"

"My only obsession is my posthumous reputation."

"However, I can now be certain that the so-called abdication of Yao and Shun is completely fictitious."

"This must have been embellished by people in ancient times."

"To be honest, if I had a successor, I would never have been willing to hand over this magnificent empire to someone who has no blood relation to me."

"History is ultimately written by the victors."

"In the face of the victors, history is nothing more than a little girl who can be dressed up as one pleases."

"Alright, kid, now that these secrets that should have been hidden deep in my heart have been revealed, I feel much more at ease."

"You no longer need to be so indecisive."

“From today onwards, nurture Xianping well and teach him the art of being an emperor.”

"Once I have dealt with those obstacles, I will appoint him as the Crown Prince."

"But I have one request, and you must grant it."

Jia Jue looked at Emperor Yongping and asked.

"What is your request, Your Majesty?"

Emperor Yongping looked at Jia Jue with a solemn expression and said.

"Boy, I want you to swear an oath to the heavens here that in this life, you can only be a subject of the Great Zhou, and you must never have any thoughts of usurpation. You must wholeheartedly support this child Xianping, and ensure that my lineage will forever hold the throne, and that the incense offerings to the previous emperors of the Great Zhou will never cease."

(End of this chapter)