My father is Yongzheng, and I am Qianlong?

Chapter 355 The Grand Ceremony of Conferment: A Major Event for Emperor Qianlong!

In his memorial, Hongli specifically mentioned that he could not reprimand the chief Grand Councilor when he knew that Marseille had come to ask him for his opinion on state affairs without being ordered to do so, thus damaging the dignity of the court.

Therefore, Emperor Hongli could only impeach Marseille secretly by submitting a memorial to the emperor.

At the same time, not wanting Yongzheng to think he was deliberately shirking his duties, he gave instructions on how to handle the situation after Marseille asked him.

Emperor Yongzheng was overwhelmed with mixed feelings and shook his head with a slight sigh: "What am I worrying about for no reason?"

As he spoke, Yongzheng looked at Marseille and said in a gentle tone, "Get up. The Crown Prince is very good, but you are too stupid!"

Yongzheng then gave Hongli's secret report to Marseille and asked Marseille to get up and read it as well.

Marseille took the book and immediately understood. He smiled憨厚ly and said, "This servant is stupid! How come this servant didn't think of doing this?"

"Fourth Master is, after all, the master's son. This servant could never be so clever in his entire life!"

Marseille's eyes reddened as he laughed.

Because he understood that Hongli was doing this to save his life and did not intend to force him to become a victim in the struggle between Yongzheng and him, the crown prince.

After all, if Hongli were to lose his temper on the spot and question Marseille about why she had come to report to him, the only consequence would be that Marseille would commit suicide to save face.

However, Hongli did not do that; instead, he submitted a secret memorial impeaching Hongli, which left room for maneuver.

This made Marseille realize the benevolent side of Hongli, which made her eyes red with emotion.

Seeing Marsai's condition, Yongzheng couldn't help but sigh, "I harmed you because of my momentary suspicion! I am sorry for you! Fortunately, Hongli saved your life and didn't have the heart to kill you."

Marsai looked up in astonishment, then immediately kowtowed: "This servant dares not!"

"By imperial decree, Marseille, as the chief Grand Councilor, secretly communicated with the Crown Prince, attempting to frame him unjustly; his title is hereby stripped! His son shall inherit the title instead; he is also stripped of his titles as chief Grand Councilor, Grand Secretary of the Hall of Preserving Harmony, and Minister of Personnel."

"He is hereby appointed with the title of Vice Minister and sent to Khalkha as Imperial Commissioner to Mongolia, ordered to atone for his crimes through meritorious service!"

"Appreciate this!"

Yongzheng suddenly spoke up, and after writing a red annotation on Hongli's secret memorial.

Instead of reprimanding Marsai on the spot, Emperor Hongli submitted a secret memorial afterward. In this way, he, as the emperor, could remove himself by punishing Marsai, and Marsai would naturally not need to care about any dignity in front of his emperor master.

Because, unlike the crown prince, the emperor does not have to show sufficient respect to the chief Grand Councilor appointed by the emperor out of consideration for his father.

But no matter what, it's a battle of wits between father and son.

He still became the unlucky one here.

Marseille dared not offer any explanation, and could only express his gratitude to Emperor Yongzheng for sparing his life.

After all, even the emperor apologized.

What could a servant like him do?
Of course, I choose to forgive!
However, Emperor Yongzheng still had a human touch, so he said to Marsaisheen, "Hongli will understand you. Go to the Mongolian steppe and do your job well. When he becomes your master in the future, he will use your past as the chief Grand Councilor to recall you to the capital, as a sign of his magnanimity."

"As long as I can still be of some use to my master, I am willing to go through fire and water!"

Marse spoke with tears in his eyes, seemingly moved that Yongzheng would comfort him, and also seemingly saddened by his upcoming assignment as the resident minister in the harsh northern desert.

But this can be seen as him continuing to contribute to the centralized power of the Qing Dynasty.

The reason why Emperor Yongzheng was able to send an envoy to Mongolia after sending an envoy to Tibet to strengthen the central dynasty's control over Tibet was because the great victory in the Dzungar War made it impossible for Mongolia to refuse Emperor Yongzheng's request to send an envoy to them.

As for why Yongzheng was able to send a resident minister to Tibet, it was because Yue Zhongqi had successfully quelled a rebellion in Qinghai and had genuinely established his authority by massacring Tibetan monks and soldiers, which allowed Yongzheng to do so.

Let’s get back to the topic.

After Marsai finished speaking, Yongzheng nodded and dismissed Marsai.

Then, Yongzheng issued another imperial edict, ordering Hongzhou to go to the northern desert to investigate Ce Leng's corruption.

Meanwhile, Hongzhou had just received news that he had been promoted to Prince He for his meritorious service.

Now, he has been tasked with investigating corruption in Celing in northern Mongolia.

He naturally understood that if he conducted a proper investigation, he could be promoted to a prince.

However, Hongzhou also understood that the reason he was able to be promoted to a county prince so quickly, and then to a prince of the first rank, was because Hongli had become the crown prince.

Moreover, when he came to pay his respects to Consort Yu, Lady Geng, she told him, "Eunuch Chen from the Empress's side sent word that your title of Prince was secured for you by your fourth brother!"

Upon hearing this, Hongzhou couldn't help but show surprise, followed by a look of being moved.

“When your fourth brother went to express his gratitude, your father mentioned the matter of granting you the title of lord. He also brought up the matter of promoting you to a higher rank.”

Geng continued, "Your father's will cannot be disobeyed. Your fourth brother clearly understands this principle, and you should understand it too, so as not to do anything foolish!"

"Mother, you must be joking. I'm a muddle-headed person by nature, how could I not do muddle-headed things?"

Hongzhou replied with a smile.

Mr. Geng nodded in satisfaction.

Hongzhou knew that Geng Shi nodded because he understood the unspoken meaning in her words, after he also expressed the unspoken meaning in his own words.

Geng told him not to be foolish, not to understand that Yongzheng wanted to support him and counterbalance Hongli, but to understand that he was no match for Hongli, that Hongli was too powerful, and not to be foolish enough to oppose Hongli. She told him to take the incident of the nine princes vying for the throne during the Kangxi era as a warning.

When Hongzhou said that he couldn't help but do foolish things, he meant that he deliberately wanted to be so foolish as not to understand Yongzheng's deeper meaning.

of course!

Hongzhou really didn't expect that Hongli would take the initiative to promote him.

This made him admire his fourth brother's magnanimity and trust.

"With a fourth brother like this, I don't have to worry about ending up like my eighth and ninth uncles."

After returning to his Beile residence, Hongzhou smiled and remarked to his primary consort, Wu Zhaku.

Upon hearing this, Wu Zhaku smiled and nestled into Hongzhou's arms.

Meanwhile, after meeting Marseille, Hongli returned to the inner courtyard and went to the residence of his primary consort, Lady Fucha. There, he told her about Yongzheng's plan to have the Empress personally raise Yonglian in the palace.

After hearing this, Consort Fucha stared blankly at Yonglian, who was running around the room.

Yonglian is now two years old, a time when he is most attached to his mother.

Therefore, it would be very cruel for him to leave his birth mother now and go to live with the Empress.

But that's how the Qing Dynasty imperial family was sometimes; for the sake of politics, they often didn't consider the needs of humanity.

Hongli patted Fucha on the shoulder.

Lady Fucha forced a smile at Hongli.

None of them could refuse the political benefit of Yonglian being raised by the current empress.

Even if they fail, Yonglian might blame them when he grows up, thinking they were too foolish.

Fortunately, he and Lady Fucha were able to meet Yonglian under the pretext of paying their respects to the Empress.

Furthermore, according to the course of history, he would become emperor in a few years. By then, Yonglian would be grown up, and he could return to the side of the Fucha clan on the grounds that he could no longer disturb the peace of the Ulanara clan.

Hongli could only think that this would prevent Lady Fucha from caring too much about Yonglian, and that severing ties appropriately might be a good thing for both mother and son.

"Try to persuade them properly."

Hongli then only said this one sentence.

Shortly thereafter, he and Zhao Jia, carrying "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy," went to visit the thirteenth prince.

Euler was naturally among those who went with them.

"I am deeply grateful to my thirteenth uncle for requesting that the Khan make me the crown prince. Therefore, I have brought a person and a letter to see my thirteenth uncle, hoping that this person and the letter can help my thirteenth uncle relieve the boredom of his daily inconvenience in going out."

After meeting the thirteenth prince, Hongli pointed to the "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" and Euler that Li Yu was holding, and smiled as he told the thirteenth prince the reason for meeting him.

“Being the crown prince is not easy, but Uncle Thirteen believes you can be a good crown prince.”

The thirteenth brother smiled and said something, then took the book and looked at Euler in front of him.

Seeing that Euler was wearing a gray-white wig, had a thin face, and deep-set eyes, the thirteenth prince asked with a smile, "What kind of fun can you bring me?"

Euler bowed and said, "Fourth Prince told me that you are a wise prince who loves mathematics and physics, and I am willing to discuss mathematics and physics with you."

"This is a study on the integral method of equations that I wrote under the inspiration of Fourth Master; please take a look! I believe you will be interested in it after reading it."

Euler also handed a book he had been holding to the thirteenth son, and waited for the translator to convey his meaning.

The thirteenth prince, fluent in Western languages, took the book, looked at it carefully, and gradually began to stroke his chin. Then he pointed at Euler and said, "Come with me to the study, and we'll discuss this in detail!" "Hongli, you go and do your own thing."

"This Euler is a treasure, and the book you gave me is also a treasure! It's rare that you could find these two treasures!"

"it is good!"

Hongli smiled slightly upon seeing this.

He knew that the thirteenth prince wouldn't be bored anymore, which would also help slow down the rate at which his condition worsened.

After meeting with the thirteenth prince, Hongli went to pay his respects to Emperor Yongzheng, bringing with him a table of phonetic symbols and a sample of a newly compiled dictionary.

After paying his respects to Emperor Yongzheng, Hongli explained to him the method of using the phonetic symbols in the phonetic notation system.

Emperor Yongzheng showed interest in this phonetic tool, which was created in the late Qing and early Republican periods to solve the problem of Chinese characters being "difficult to recognize and read" and to promote language unification.

After all, this phonetic notation method originated from traditional Chinese phonology and did not directly use Latin letters to represent the sounds. Therefore, Emperor Yongzheng, who was accustomed to writing traditional Chinese characters by strokes, was not so resistant to it and only regarded it as a phonetic notation method that Hongli had found.

For example, use "ㄅ" to refer to "b".

“ㄆ” refers to “p”.

"In this way, a standard Mandarin Chinese language can be developed, which will be beneficial for education."

At this time, Hongli also offered a few words of explanation.

After listening, Yongzheng nodded and quickly mastered the phonetic notation method. He was quite surprised and said, "This is indeed much simpler than the current phonetic notation."

Hongli knew that the current phonetic system was called the fanqie method, which uses two characters to spell out the pronunciation of a single character.

The key point is that people from different places pronounce it differently.

Moreover, this method is extremely unfriendly to beginners, requiring them to know a large number of Chinese characters before they can use it, which fails to meet the needs of popular education and is not conducive to unifying the pronunciation of characters.

Therefore, Emperor Qianlong raised this issue at this time in order to completely solve the problem of Chinese characters being difficult to recognize and read, so that more people could recognize Chinese characters and increase the difficulty for the scholar-officials to monopolize the written language.

"Your subject intends to spend time promoting this saying in the future, and take this opportunity to compile a simpler dictionary and promote it throughout the world, so that all scholars can use it and thus learn more characters more easily."

"Please grant my permission, Your Majesty!"

Hongli then went on to explain his purpose and showed Yongzheng a sample of what he wanted to compile, similar to the Xinhua Dictionary.

The reason why Hongli dared to tell Yongzheng this was because Yongzheng was a Qing emperor who had actively promoted community schools and intended to improve literacy rates.

Because for Yongzheng, he truly wanted to be the emperor of China, which was different from the "ambitious" Qianlong in history.

Upon reading this, Emperor Yongzheng recognized its profound significance: "Excellent! If more people become literate, it will be beneficial for educating the people and preventing them from believing Lü Liuliang's words!"

"My book, 'The Record of Awakening from Delusion,' will be able to be seen by more people."

Emperor Yongzheng rubbed his hands together and said with a smile.

then.

Yongzheng patted Hongli on the shoulder again, his face solemn, and said, "You are doing something great! Something that will leave no room for fallacies and heresies! It makes me wish I could write more articles to analyze the classics of the world!"

"In this way, the rites of the sages can truly be performed according to the emperor, rather than according to learned scholars!"

Yongzheng put his hands behind his back and looked at the manuscript he was writing in his spare time.

Hongli sighed slightly, thinking to himself, "It seems that Yongzheng, influenced by this, will continue to vie for the right to speak with the gentry and will work even harder in his writing career."

"Your Majesty has made me the Crown Prince, so naturally I must think about big issues and do great things!"

"At the same time, I don't want to waste the rest of my time guessing whether Father will change the Crown Prince or whether he will be wary of me."

"Whether or not I inherit the throne in the future, I must do my best to do a few great things for the Qing Dynasty!"

"Even if a minister like Marseille were to test me, I would not change my mind. I would truly do nothing but protect myself!"

"Therefore, Father, there is no need to test me. I will neither act like a coward nor complain about Father's necessary precautions. Otherwise, I would not have taken the initiative to ask Father to support my fifth brother!"

While sighing, Hongli also brought up the matter of Marseille coming to see him yesterday. At the same time, he deliberately brought it up to Yongzheng, letting Yongzheng know how great and righteous he was, so as to truly control Yongzheng.

After all, Emperor Yongzheng was more responsive to firmness than gentleness, and he was prone to self-reflection.

Hongli then spoke frankly and directly, refusing to play games with Yongzheng.

After hearing Hongli speak so directly, Yongzheng was stunned for a moment.

Then, Yongzheng nodded heavily, gave a bitter laugh, and said, "Hongli, it's good that you don't blame me. I'm really getting old, and when you get old, you tend to overthink things."

"So, while you were preoccupied with what great things you were doing, I neglected my duties, forgot that the banner administration had not yet been truly reformed, forgot about the affairs of the Miao region, and forgot that the affairs of the Northwest had not yet been resolved."

"You're not just prone to overthinking as you get older."

Hongli muttered a curse to himself, but still smiled knowingly at the ashamed look on the man's face.

Then, Hongli arrogantly cupped his hands and said, "Father, you are indeed getting old!"

Yongzheng looked up in astonishment.

Seeing Yongzheng's state, Hongli could only smile to himself.

Heh heh! He knew that Yongzheng would be furious because his son hadn't comforted or flattered him.

But who doesn't know you, Emperor Yongzheng?

If someone only flatters you, agrees with you, and says nice things, you will inevitably feel disgusted with the person who comforts and flatters you afterward, thinking that this person is not sincere.

On the contrary, they will feel pity for those who do not flatter you.

Take Zeng Jing, for example. They've been interrogating her for so long and haven't killed her yet.

Therefore, Hongli chose to take a straightforward approach.

But Hongli knew that no matter what, Yongzheng was still the emperor who held the power of life and death. He could be straightforward, but he had to have evidence to convince the emperor that he wasn't deceiving him.

therefore!

Hongli then added, "However, there's nothing wrong with being old. Clothes are better when they're new, and people are better when they're old. Compared to the impetuousness and radicalism of young people, we still need the old to manage the household!"

Upon hearing this, Yongzheng finally relaxed his open eyelids.

"However, even seasoned strategists should be proactive and not allow themselves to live in a situation where they can only flatter and fawn."

"So, the problem isn't that Ama is old. The problem is that some people are afraid to remind Ama what is the right thing to do. This makes it impossible for Ama to notice his occasional oversights in time. As a result, these oversights accumulate and eventually become big problems, even causing things to deviate from Ama's expected outcome."

Hongli's words meant one thing: emperors like Yongzheng, who became increasingly centralized in their power, were prone to falling into a cognitive trap. So, if they remained wise throughout, it would be fine, but if they made a mistake, it would be easy for it to go uncorrected.

Emperor Yongzheng, being quick to understand, nodded and said, "That's right, Marseille, the chief Grand Councilor, only knows how to echo others! I have already demoted him!"

Hongli was very pleased with himself, knowing that Yongzheng was even more susceptible to this.

At this time, Yongzheng said, "After the investiture ceremony, you will make this phonetic annotation and compile a common dictionary for easy education. I will issue an edict that the Court of Imperial Sacrifices will only obey your orders, and you will appoint the officials of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices yourself."

"Your son thanks Father for granting your wish!"

Hongli immediately showed a look of delight.

The Court of Imperial Sacrifices was his subordinate office in the Eastern Palace. The fact that he could appoint his own subordinate office meant that he could bestow favors upon those he valued.

The biggest benefit of this will be evident when he becomes emperor!
Hongli thus knew that his expression of his determination to do practical things to Yongzheng had not been in vain.

"How could I not support such a major event that benefits the country and its people?"

"I must also pull myself together and not wallow in suspicion!"

Emperor Yongzheng put his hands on his hips and sighed in admiration.

"The Ministry of Rites and the Imperial Observatory have proposed that the Fourth Prince's birth chart is Geng Metal, which is extremely Yang and strong. It needs to be tempered by strong fire to become a pillar of the nation. The investiture ceremony can be held on the Ji Si day of the twelfth lunar month. Ji Earth generates Metal, and Si Fire strengthens it, which is an image of father begetting son and ruler forging minister. The mandate of heaven is clear. Therefore, we request permission to hold the investiture ceremony on the Ji Si day of the twelfth lunar month!"

Military Affairs Office.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed chief Grand Councilor Zhang Tingyu also requested a date for the investiture ceremony shortly thereafter.

Emperor Yongzheng agreed and issued an edict to officially appoint the Crown Prince on the day of Ji Si in the twelfth lunar month.

The day of Ji Si in the twelfth lunar month is the twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month

Therefore, on the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the ninth year of Yongzheng's reign, Hongli, who had already fasted as usual, put on an apricot-yellow robe with four dragon medallions and received his investiture in the Yin'an Hall.

"Your Majesty's fourth son, Prince Bao, Hongli, is exceptionally talented and of outstanding character... He is hereby appointed as the Crown Prince and placed in the Eastern Palace!"

(End of this chapter)