My father is Yongzheng, and I am Qianlong?

Chapter 229 Awarding the title of Prince!
Hongli nodded.

He never expected that, through his actions, Yongzheng would be so enraged that he would add the title that originally belonged to the ninth prince to Hongsheng.

But given Hongsheng's character, Hongli felt that renaming him Seshehei was a fitting name.

"I am not a Seth hater!"

However, Hong Sheng himself was clearly unwilling to accept this humiliating title, and in the narrow, dark room, he shouted out, very agitated, clearly still not over it.

Hongli looked over and found that the sound was coming from a window in the small dark room.

The window was smaller than a person's head; it could only fit a bowl of rice inside.

Hongli was quite certain that Hongsheng must be suffering terribly being imprisoned in such a place.

"You bastard, the imperial edict says you are Seth Black, so you are Seth Black. If you don't want to be called Seth Black, you'd better reflect on your mistakes and repent!"

"Only then can I petition the emperor to change your name back to its original name."

At this moment, the tenth brother spoke up.

At this moment, Hongli smiled slightly.

After the tenth prince went to the main hall with Hongli, he looked at Hongli and said, "I didn't expect that the emperor would remove his yellow sash, it's not an adoption."

“I didn’t think of that at the time, but after thinking about it carefully, I realized that my cousin had forgotten that he was no longer a grandson of the emperor and did not know how to be a nephew of the emperor.”

Hongli said all this in the hope that the tenth prince could understand that he was in the same situation. Now it was the Yongzheng era, and he had become the emperor's younger brother, no longer a prince. In the Qing Dynasty, a time of monarchy and subjects, this change was enormous.

Specifically, when a prince is a prince, he is still the emperor's son, but when he becomes the emperor's brother or nephew, he has an additional master-servant relationship with the emperor.

The tenth prince scratched his head: "What does this have to do with Hongsheng not urging your third uncle to come and celebrate the grandson of the emperor earlier? I arrived very late too!"

"Because what the Khan values ​​is not just how much the royal family and princes regard the newly born grandson, but how loyal they are to the new emperor!"

"Uncle, as the younger brother of the emperor, you are fortunate that the Khan is not fully aware of the problem because you are the younger brother. However, as the eldest uncle of the emperor, and the only one who can still participate in court affairs and has his own military command, the eldest member of the royal family, you naturally cannot be careless in this matter!"

After Hongli said this, the tenth prince nodded: "I see."

"So, in other words, His Majesty the Fourth Brother wants us, his brothers, to know that we are now his servants, and that he is our master?"

The tenth prince then frowned and looked at Hongli, asking a question.

Hongli nodded.

The tenth brother fell silent.

“Hongli, you know your tenth uncle, he couldn’t read or write since he was a child, and he doesn’t understand any profound principles.”

"Fortunately, you have your tenth uncle in your heart and remind him from time to time, so your tenth uncle can still go fishing and travel around now."

"From now on, if anything happens, you'll have to remind your tenth uncle. Your tenth uncle has decided that you will be the future master of the Qing Dynasty. Whatever you want your tenth uncle to do, your tenth uncle will do!"

After a while.

The tenth prince suddenly spoke to Hongli very seriously.

Hongli smiled. He knew that the tenth prince was expressing his loyalty to him and recognizing him as the future master of the Qing Dynasty.

He was naturally overjoyed that another elder member of the royal family had chosen to remain loyal to him, and after exchanging pleasantries, he said:

"Then please ask Uncle Ten to give my cousin some pointers so that he understands the difference between a grandson of the emperor and a nephew of the emperor."

Old Ten nodded: "Don't worry!"

"Well done, Hongli! My son was stripped of his official rank and had his name changed by you with just a few words. He truly deserves to lose!"

Now, Yongzheng knew that the third prince would not actually force Hongsheng to do something as foolish as extorting bribes from officials, so he did not severely punish the third prince. Instead, he demoted the third prince to a prince of the second rank and confiscated some of his military posts. The third prince returned to his palace in a daze and, after staring blankly in his study for a long time, said the following sentence.

He then burst into tears because he thought about Hong Sheng's fate:
"My son, it is your father who has ruined you!"

The heartbroken third son dared not borrow money from Hongli again, and he had no intention of asking the Cao family to become his retainers. After all, his most cherished son was now in the hands of the tenth son.

He knew very well that if his son fell into the hands of the tenth prince, it would be the same as if he fell into the hands of Hongli.

Moreover, he also knew that with his son's talent, if he offended Hongli too much, it would be very easy for Hongli to deal with his son. Just like not long ago, when he did not go to the palace early to celebrate the birth of the imperial grandson, Hongli said that it was because Hongsheng deliberately did not remind him.

Therefore, the third son knew that he would have to be even more obedient in front of Hongli in the future.

After all, Hongli had his current weakness in his grasp.

At the same time, Hongli's mention of his late arrival at the celebration of the grandson of the emperor made him realize that he had not been cautious enough and had not been respectful enough to Yongzheng.

Therefore, regarding the withdrawal of the five Zuo-ling (military commanders), when the third prince submitted a memorial to Emperor Yongzheng requesting the withdrawal of those Zuo-ling, he began by saying, "This servant has not been entirely sincere, causing Your Majesty to have doubts..."

That's right, the third prince started calling Yongzheng "master" and referring to himself as a servant.

He now clearly understands that Yongzheng's dissatisfaction with him stems from his insufficient understanding of Yongzheng's requirement for him to be sufficiently loyal. Hongli's success in getting Yongzheng to severely punish his son is precisely because he realized that Yongzheng would not allow anyone to be anything less than absolutely loyal to him!

Hongli was very satisfied with his third son's much more obedient behavior afterward.

This way, he can avoid a lot of trouble.

After all, the third brother was his third uncle. In this era that places great importance on human relationships and etiquette, he couldn't be too heartless if the brother continued to bother him.

Therefore, he was happy to see that the third son could behave much better.

After leaving the tenth prince's place, Hongli told Yongzheng about Hongsheng's situation and what the tenth prince had said to him.

Yongzheng saw that although the tenth prince was reckless and foolish, he could distinguish between good and bad and was not cunning, so he was very reassured to support Hongli.

So Yongzheng smiled and said, "Your tenth uncle is not a bad person, and given his noble status, let's grant him the title of Prince!"

"Summon Zhang Tingyu!"

Hongli was actually happy for the tenth prince.

After meeting Emperor Yongzheng, Hongli requested permission to go to the Ministry of Justice prison.

Raguginsky, the envoy of the Russian Empire, is imprisoned here.

The matter of Lagukinsky's imprisonment.

He genuinely didn't expect things to turn out this way.

At first, he thought it must be a test, that the Qing emperor was deliberately testing his courage, rather than actually daring to keep him locked up forever.

He couldn’t think of any other explanation other than a test.

"If it's just a test, then it's easy to handle."

he told himself.

He was even more convinced that as long as Yongzheng met with him, with his shrewdness, courage, eloquence, and the Qing officials' advocacy of appeasing distant peoples, he would surely persuade Yongzheng to release him, claim that it was a misunderstanding, apologize to him, and let him go. Then he could swagger back to the Huitongguan and continue to show off his power.

But as three days, five days, and even ten days passed, Yongzheng still did not release him.

He began to feel so hungry that he had to force himself to eat the unpalatable prison food, began to smell the stench on his own body, and began to catch a cold and develop a fever due to the cold and filthy environment. Only then did he realize that Yongzheng was not testing him, and that he might really die here.

This made him realize that, in the eyes of this emperor, he, as an envoy of the Rakshasa Kingdom, and the Rakshasa Kingdom behind him, were indeed nothing.

"The Fourth Master is here!"

But when Hongli arrived, Ragujinsky had completely lost his arrogance and was pleading with Hongli: "Please, Fourth Prince, inform His Majesty the Emperor of your country and ask him to give me another chance!"

Hongli coldly asked him, "The blunt knife I received and the map that annexed Shengjing into your Rakshasa Kingdom, were those sent by you?"

(End of this chapter)