Chapter 72

Twelve years ago, a monk and a young man came to the Prefecture of Kaifeng, seeking to meet the Prefect Qian Mingyi. The guards shouted at them, but the monk said, "Do not be impolite; this is the Crown Prince."

The guards felt as if thunder had struck them.

However, it didn't matter much. Emperor Renzong's reign was relatively clear and just. A scholar from Sichuan, who failed the imperial exams repeatedly, wrote a poem that read, "Burn the栈阁 (Zang Ge) of the Broken Sword Gate, and Chengdu will be a new world." In any other dynasty, this would have led to the extermination of his clan, but Emperor Renzong found it amusing. After reviewing the case, he said the old scholar was pitiful, having failed the exams and nearly gone mad. He then granted him the position of a military advisor.

So the guards did not arrest them; they just drove them away. But these two people went to the Temple of the State and began to lecture, revealing explosive news. They said that over a decade ago, Emperor Renzong had taken a fancy to a palace maid, and after one night, she was envied and expelled by the other concubines. However, that night, she became pregnant and gave birth to a prince outside the palace. The maid, fearing harm, did not dare to announce it publicly. Only after the child grew up did she send him to find his father...

The story was filled with romance, intrigue, palace politics, and strangeness, and the audience was captivated.

Qian Mingyi could not sit still and sent people to arrest the two. To his surprise, the young man haughtily said, "How can you not stand up, Mingyi?"

He was the Prefect of Kaifeng.

But after a long pause, Qian Mingyi's face turned red, and he slowly stood up...

He did not dare to interrogate them and handed them over to Bao Zheng. Bao Zheng then asked Emperor Renzong, "Your Majesty, did this ever happen?"

Emperor Renzong was also taken aback. With so many concubines, he was like a diligent little bee, flitting from one to another. Who knew if he had ever been with that palace maid? If it had been a few years, he might have remembered, but it had been over a decade. How could he remember? Bao Zheng, helpless, had to investigate from other angles. The result was that it was all a fake, and the false prince was executed.

But that day, Emperor Renzong was disappointed, the ministers were disappointed, and nearly a hundred million people in the Song Dynasty were disappointed. It was a painful truth: the Emperor had no son!

Although Emperor Renzong adopted two children from the imperial clan, he continued to try to have his own children, which further strained his already weak health.

The ministers did not care about Emperor Renzong's life. If he died, the empire needed a successor. They submitted memorials demanding the establishment of a crown prince. Interestingly, the censor Fan Zhen kept nagging Emperor Renzong to establish a crown prince early. After seven times, Emperor Renzong ignored him, and Fan Zhen's hair turned white overnight. He then boldly said, "If you do not establish a crown prince, the country will eventually fall, and when you fall, I will fall too. So, kill me now." Emperor Renzong still did not listen, but he did not get angry. Instead, he promoted Fan Zhen, who died of frustration.

In the end, they chose Zhao Zongshi.

This was a wrong choice, but there was no psychology at the time.

First, his father was Zhao Yunrang, who had already been a backup for Emperor Renzong. Then, Zhao Zongshi himself, after Emperor Renzong's first son died, was brought to the palace at the age of four as a backup. But when Emperor Renzong's second son was born, he was expelled from the palace. Later, he became a backup again. What kind of mindset would this create for a father and son?

But it didn't matter. Although his mother was a beggar, he had a good wife, Gao Taotao, and Gao Taotao had a good aunt, Empress Dowager Cao!

The ministers finally persuaded Emperor Renzong, but when they approached Zhao Zongshi, they were stunned. His biological father, Zhao Yunrang, had just died, and he was in mourning, refusing to accept the appointment.

This was a big problem for the future.

In a thousand years, this might be seen as filial piety, after all, it was his biological father. But this was not a thousand years later; it was the Song Dynasty, with its own standards. In those times, leaving home meant breaking ties, and adopted children were considered the true children of their adoptive parents. Even a powerful ruler like Chai Rong, whose father was not his biological father Chai Shouli, but rather Guo Wei, who gave Chai Shouli a nominal position and strictly adhered to ancient rituals, ensuring that father and son did not meet!

Emperor Renzong was somewhat angry and thought about replacing him, as there were many imperial clan members to choose from.

Han Qi was in a hurry. "Your biological father is not your father; your adoptive father is your father. You must observe filial piety for your adoptive father." But he was in a bind. He had bet on Zhao Zongshi and could not back out. So he pleaded, "How can this matter be abandoned? Please, Your Majesty, write a personal edict, so that Zongshi knows it is the will of heaven, and he will naturally comply."

Emperor Renzong then wrote the edict personally.

But it got even more interesting. Emperor Renzong wrote eighteen edicts, and Zhao Zongshi wrote eighteen replies declining. Han Qi explained for Zhao Zongshi, "It's not that the prince is unreasonable, but that the title is not correct. The Keeper of the Imperial Clan cannot resolve this issue. The prince must be officially established as the crown prince to accept the edict." The Chief of the Secretariat, Zhang Sheng, found this strange and asked Emperor Renzong, "Does Your Majesty have any doubts?"

But at this time, Emperor Renzong was not the healthy man he had been a few years ago. With Empress Cao inside and Han Qi and Ouyang Xiu outside, he did not understand Zhang Sheng's implications. Instead, he said, "I want the people to have a leader. As long as he is surnamed Zhao, it is fine."

On the seventh day of the eighth month, Emperor Renzong announced the establishment of the crown prince and officially changed his name to "Shu."

What does "Shu" mean? The hope of the nation.

But Zhao Shu still did not accept the edict. Even when Emperor Renzong ordered the Keeper of the Imperial Clan to send a sedan chair to carry him into the palace, he refused, claiming he was not seeking good fortune but avoiding disaster.

Letting you be the crown prince, what disaster are you avoiding?

Finally, a secretary of the princely household, Meng Yang, said, "You are the prince, and the whole world knows it. Even if you resign and return to the princely household, can you guarantee there will be no future trouble?"

Zhao Shu was so frightened that he jumped up, no longer ill, and happily entered the palace.

Trust those you use, and use those you trust. This was the best description of Emperor Renzong's life. When he doubted Lu Yijian, Lu Yijian had to step down. When he trusted Lu Yijian, he would heavily rely on him, regardless of what Kong Daofu and Fan Zhongyan did. When he trusted Fan Zhongyan, he allowed him to reform, but when it did not go well, he immediately dismissed him, even though he wrote "Yueyang Tower."

Since he decided to make Zhao Shu the crown prince, on New Year's Day, he brought Zhao Shu to the palace and called all the high-ranking officials, inner palace attendants, financial officers, censors, two-system officials, military officers, and imperial clan princesses to accompany him, taking Zhao Shu to visit the ancestral relics in the Tianzhang Pavilion and Longtu Pavilion.

To further solidify Zhao Shu's position...

Then he held a banquet in the palace, where the emperor and his ministers enjoyed themselves. He deliberately called Han Qi to his side, gave him a cup of deer placenta wine, and acknowledged him as the chief minister in establishing the crown prince.

Whether as the emperor of Han Qi or as the father of Zhao Shu, he had done enough.

No one cared or asked what Emperor Renzong truly thought.

Perhaps he felt he had let go. Emperor Renzong's weak body finally lost its last bit of vitality and fell seriously ill.

But at this moment, a small wing flapped hard.

Wang Ju also heard some news about the young princess, but it was far away and distorted, making it unreliable. Only one thing was confirmed: Zhao Nianu followed his plan, successfully divorced Li Wei, and was then confined in the palace. Confinement was a polite term, a way to give an account to the big-mouthed ministers.

A daughter is a father's little cotton jacket. Emperor Renzong had daughters, but they were young, and only Zhao Nianu was grown up. She was now by his side, often making him happy, which somewhat alleviated his inner distress.

This change made Emperor Renzong live nearly six months longer.

On the Double Ninth Festival, Emperor Renzong suddenly felt energetic and took a group of ministers to the Iron Tower in the north of Kaifeng, then climbed the Northern Mountain. He caught a chill and fell seriously ill.

Han Qi and other high-ranking officials visited him in the palace. It was their first time entering Emperor Renzong's bedroom, but what they saw made them all speechless. Inside the curtains, the bed curtains and bedding used by Emperor Renzong were simple and shabby, having not been changed for a long time, looking worn and torn.

This was the room of the ruler of the world.

Even if Han Qi and the others skipped a few flower and wine parties, it would have been enough to make everything in the room look brand new.

Seeing that no one spoke, Emperor Renzong said, "I live in the palace, and my life is like this. This is the blood and sweat of the people. Can it be wasted easily?"

Thinking about his life and death, this sentence pushed the tragic image of this hardworking emperor to the peak of all rulers in Chinese history.

Soon, Emperor Renzong died, and Zhao Shu succeeded him. The court issued a fast edict to notify all the prefectures and counties, which was the fast report that Zhang Zai and Wang Ju saw.

Wang Ju looked at the fast report and thought to himself, "If the crown prince had not been established, would Emperor Renzong have lived longer?" This was Wang Ju's wishful thinking.

Establishing a crown prince was not wrong. In a feudal era, a country needed a successor to ensure a smooth transition. The mistake was that the future Emperor Yingzong was a troublemaker, and the mistake was that Han Qi and Ouyang Xiu, seeing Zhao Shu's various issues, still deceived and forced him to become the crown prince.

When Emperor Renzong died, it is said that all the military and civilians in the capital stopped business and mourned, with the mourning lasting for several days. Even beggars and children bought paper money to burn at the palace gates. As the news spread, almost all the people in the country were in mourning, and even the people in the Liao territory of Yan cried. Decades later, when the Jurchens invaded, they did not touch Emperor Renzong's tomb and deliberately released the living daughter of Emperor Renzong, Princess of Luzhou.

Even in Yunyan County, many people wore mourning clothes and burned paper money, as if they had lost a parent.

"Perhaps the new emperor will be a good ruler," Zhang Zai said silently.

"A good ruler?" Wang Ju could not help but want to laugh out loud.

PS: These two chapters are transitional, with a large background. Not explaining it would make it hard to write the next part. The book will not be published at the beginning of the month due to personal reasons, possibly on the 8th. But for everyone, this might be a good thing. Tomorrow, I will fulfill the promise of a big update. With such a long public version and no word count limit for new books, there will definitely be more big updates. How many words will the public version be? 400,000, 500,000, hehe.

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