Madam, don't do this!

Chapter 165 Stupid Woman (2)

Song Yan put himself in Fang Jun's shoes and thought about it carefully. If he were to spend five years with a woman like Princess Gaoyang, he would definitely not be indifferent.

After all, he was a normal man, while Princess Gaoyang's sexual charm and attractiveness were truly incomparable to those of ordinary women.

However, such thoughts seemed somewhat disrespectful to Princess Gaoyang, so Song Yan shook his head to suppress these distracting thoughts and looked up at Liu Yisheng: "Is that all?"

"This shouldn't be enough to make Jiang Miaojun target Princess Gaoyang, right?"

There doesn't seem to be much affection between Gao Yang and Fang Jun. This can be seen from their interaction during the Qixi Festival. Although they seemed intimate, it was actually stiff, more like they were performing a task they had to do. Moreover, whether it was Fang Jun at the night market or Princess Gao Yang whom they met today, they were not by each other's side, indicating that their married life is not harmonious.

It's actually quite easy to understand. After all, the marriage between the two was purely a political alliance. The Fang family was a royalist faction, and Gao Yang acted as a link between the Fang family and the royal family, used to solidify their cooperation. Therefore, Gao Yang's role was particularly important. If anything happened to Gao Yang within the Fang family, it would cause a huge rift between the royal family and the Fang family, leading to a serious crisis of trust.

Jiang Miaojun is a lady from a respectable family, she should have some knowledge, she shouldn't be so stupid as to not even consider this much, right?
Thinking this, Song Yan said, "According to the rules of Ning Kingdom, the consort and the prince consort cannot take concubines, but this is not absolute. If the princess does not have children, the consort can still take concubines. Even the royal family cannot be so domineering as to make the consort childless."

“Princess Gaoyang has been childless for five years. Even if she takes a concubine, the royal family will not say anything. So why would they want to harm Princess Gaoyang?”

Liu Yisheng shook his head: "Sir, you don't seem to care much about these things. Actually, you can get a general understanding of some things by asking around a little."

"The governor's wife has long harbored resentment over the princess's inability to bear children and has been arranging to find Fang Jun another woman. The woman she has chosen is a junior member of the Jiang family, who, in terms of seniority, is Jiang Miaojun's grand-niece and Fang Jun's niece..."

puff.

Song Yan couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of saliva.

I knew that these powerful families were extravagant, but I never expected them to be this extravagant.

Could this Jiang Miaojun be the reincarnation of Empress Lü?

Liu Yisheng's expression was also somewhat strange: "It is indeed against human ethics, but Jiang Miaojun is determined to make the relationship between the Jiang family and the Fang family closer, and the Jiang family does not have many women, and this niece is the only one of marriageable age."

"This matter caused quite a stir in Songzhou Prefecture at the time, so many people knew about it. Fang Hai and Fang Jun both disagreed, but Jiang Miaojun was determined to have this girl and showed no sign of backing down. In the end, they could only reluctantly agree. Of course, for the sake of both families' reputation, they eventually changed the girl's registered identity to that of a distant cousin."

"If things had ended there, it would have been somewhat normal. Unfortunately, Jiang Miaojun is very ambitious. Perhaps it was Fang Hai and Fang Jun's concessions that gave Jiang Miaojun confidence. She was unwilling to just let the Jiang family daughter be a concubine and insisted on making her an equal wife."

"That's going a bit too far," Song Yan sighed.

The idea of ​​having multiple wives and concubines has existed since ancient times.

In reality, it was all one wife and multiple concubines. The so-called concubines, secondary wives, lower wives, younger wives, illegitimate wives, and secondary wives were essentially just different names for concubines. As for the equal wife, you can tell what it was just from the name. It was a concubine who wanted to be on equal footing with the principal wife, so she created the equal wife. No family with any sense of rules would allow such a thing to happen.

In powerful families, having a concubine as a secondary wife is often seen as a source of domestic discord. Moreover, even with the decline of the imperial family, Princess Gaoyang's status remains noble. To establish a concubine as a secondary wife would be an undisguised humiliation, not only for Princess Gaoyang but also for the entire imperial family. Not to mention the Minister of the Imperial Secretariat, Fang De, even Fang Hai, a cunning old fox, would never do something so foolish.

Therefore, without a doubt, Jiang Miaojun's plan failed.

This naturally worsened the relationship between Princess Gaoyang and Jiang Miaojun. According to Liu Yisheng, there had even been extremely fierce conflicts, but the Fang family was powerful, and Songzhou Prefecture was their territory, so they managed to cover it up.

Song Yan frowned: "So, Jiang Miaojun really did have a motive to harm Princess Gaoyang, but that woman shouldn't be that stupid, right? Doesn't she understand that if something really happens to Princess Gaoyang, the cooperation between the royal family and the Fang family will cease to exist?"

"At this point, what should the Fang family do? Can they remain unscathed? Or should they seek refuge with the Yang family?"

“No matter what, the result will probably be that the Yang family will swallow her up.” Liu Yisheng smiled and said, “Jiang Miaojun probably thinks that the emperor still has to rely on the Fang family, so he will not take a princess of the royal family seriously. Perhaps she believes that even if Princess Gaoyang is killed, the royal family will not dare to turn against the Fang family.”

"Just like during the reign of Emperor Xuan of the Great Wu Dynasty, Madam Guo relied on the fact that Emperor Xuan was put on the throne by her own man, and the Guo family held absolute power in the court. In order to make her daughter, who was a concubine, become empress, she poisoned Emperor Xuan's original empress... When she poisoned him, Madam Guo probably did not expect that after Prime Minister Guo died, Emperor Xuan would seize real power, and then the entire Guo family would be executed, with more than 30,000 people implicated. The entire imperial city was littered with corpses and rivers of blood."

Liu Yisheng shrugged: "There are many things that we find hard to understand, but some women are really capable of doing them. Of course, whatever the situation, I don't recommend that you get involved in this matter, Your Excellency. You are about to go to Liaodong, and it is not advisable for you to get involved in other troubles before then."

Shouldn't we get involved? Song Yan remained silent for a moment.

Listening from the side, Kōsō Buyū, being a woman, felt somewhat unconvinced and joined the debate.

For a moment, the carriage became exceptionally lively.

……

Before we knew it, three days had passed.

At the training grounds, the seven thousand soldiers preparing for the Japanese invasion continued their daily training. They had gradually become accustomed to this routine and could endure even exhaustion. The soldiers, who were originally somewhat thin, had rapidly grown stronger. The blacksmith shop had recruited another batch of new recruits and was working diligently to forge infantry armor. Overall efficiency had increased by about 30%. One piece of armor after another came off the assembly line and was quickly sent to the barracks. Some soldiers had already begun training to put on the armor.

Fang Hai acted quickly as well. Starting the next day, people began to disguise themselves as laborers and sneak into Ningping.

In the past few days, Horikawa Sousuke seemed to have disappeared, never appearing in front of Song Yan again. However, Song Yan was not in a hurry. He was like a patient hunter, quietly waiting for his prey to take the bait.

It was late autumn in Ningguo, and the temperature was already quite low, but for some reason, there seemed to be even more mosquitoes than in the summer.

Snapped.

Song Yan then slapped his arm with his finger.

A red blotch in the palm.

This mosquito is huge; its mouth can actually penetrate a thick robe. It's truly terrifying.

He glanced at Luo Tianyi beside him. Perhaps sensing the oppressive atmosphere, his sister-in-law unusually deactivated her invisibility and agreed to walk with Song Yan.

At the tofu pudding stall, the proprietress was packing up, clearly preparing to close up shop and waiting to serve her last two customers. Song Yan's tofu pudding was still the plain kind; he preferred sweet, but the proprietress couldn't afford sugar. Luo Tianyi, as always, was an oddball, adding a little coarse salt.

Beside Luo Tianyi, all was quiet. A small, pale hand held an enamel spoon, sipping slowly. Song Yan looked away and saw a buzzing sound. Tiny shadows fluttered their wings, the sound so loud it was almost noisy to Song Yan.

A small question mark popped into my mind: Could this be considered a mosquito repellent environment?
Speaking of which, how many realms are there in the martial arts path of this world? As far as we know, there are already the Mosquito Repellent Realm, the Rain Shelter Realm, and the Frost Formation Realm.

I wonder if I'll encounter even more terrifying realms in the future; I feel a strange sense of anticipation.

Thinking this, Song Yan found it amusing. Just then, his sister-in-law frowned slightly, her slender hand, which had been raised halfway in the air, suddenly stopped, and she looked to the side.

Following his sister-in-law's gaze, a figure appeared in front of Song Yan. Who else could it be but Horikawa Sousuke, who had left a few days ago?

Song Yan smiled, as if he had met an old friend with whom he would die for each other.

(End of this chapter)