Chapter 1267: The Queen Mother's Resentment, Complete Chain of Evidence

The last day of mid-March.

Su Mingzhe summoned all the concubines, as well as the princes and princesses of the court, to Yonghe Palace to celebrate the 72nd Halloween of the Empress Dowager.

As the old saying goes, at seventy-three or eighty-four, the King of Hell won’t call you to go.

Ever since Yinzhen went to America to be a fief, the Empress Dowager had been suffering from various health problems and her mental state had been changing from good to bad, causing people to start to wonder if her end was near.

"Emperor, come here!"

The Empress Dowager, supported by her nieces Rouze and Yixiu, came to the main hall. Seeing the whole family sitting together, she immediately relaxed a lot. She reached out and grabbed her eldest son, and asked tremblingly:
"Emperor, where is your brother? Is he almost in the capital?"

Facing the old lady's question, Su Mingzhe quickly replied:
"Mother, Yinzhen is still at sea. It will take at least three or four months for him to come back!"

"Why is it taking so long?"

When the Empress Dowager heard that her youngest son was not coming, her face suddenly turned gloomy:
"Old Four, didn't you notify your brother to come back?"

"Mother, I issued the imperial decree in front of you. Have you forgotten?"

Seeing that the old lady was confused, Su Mingzhe could only patiently speak:

"Mother, the Tang Kingdom is thirty or forty thousand miles away from the Qing Dynasty by sea. It will take at least a year to go back and forth..."

The Queen Mother's eyes were filled with distrust of Su Mingzhe's words:
"Is the Tang Kingdom so far away from our Qing Dynasty? Don't lie to an old woman like me—"

"Mother, how could I lie to you! The Tang Kingdom is indeed tens of thousands of miles away from the Qing Dynasty, but sending the imperial edict over there will take half a year across the ocean! I issued the notice during the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, and it has only been six or seven months. At this time, Yinzhen has just set out. It will take at least until the Mid-Autumn Festival in the second half of the year for him to come back!"

"Why is the Tang Kingdom so far away..."

When the Queen Mother heard that it would take several more months before she could see her youngest son, she was immediately unhappy:
"Emperor, can't you bring your brother's fiefdom closer to you?"

"Mother, this was chosen by Yinzhen himself."

Su Mingzhe won't take the blame.

In order to stay away from the Qing Dynasty, Yinzhen specially set up his fiefdom, Tang Kingdom, near the state of Florida in later generations.

Although the Qing Dynasty already had steam engines and ships, it still took several months to cross the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away.

This is not an exaggeration.

You have to know that it was the early eighteenth century. The only way to get from Florida to Qing Dynasty was to take a ship around the entire South America.

After all, the land of Panama had just been taken back by Yinxiang from Spain, and it would take at least forty or fifty years before the canal could be opened.

After finally putting the matter of Yinzhen behind them, it was soon time to celebrate the birthday.

The Empress Dowager looked at the sparsely packed audience of seven or eight princes and princesses, and her expression, which had just relaxed, became gloomy again:

"Empress, how old are the youngest prince and princess?"

When Empress Rouze heard her aunt and mother-in-law asking, she came over aggrievedly and replied:

"Aunt, the youngest, the Nineteenth Prince, is eleven years old this year, and the youngest, the Seventeenth Princess, is ten years old!"

"The youngest princess is already ten years old. In the past ten years, there haven't been any newborns imported into the Forbidden City, right?"

The Empress Dowager snorted coldly, looked at Imperial Noble Consort Ruoxi who was not far away from her with unfriendly eyes, and then asked the Emperor:

"Emperor, how many years have you been on the throne?"

Su Mingzhe saw the Queen Mother bringing up the old topic again. He wanted to ignore her, but was afraid that she would make a scene, so he could only bite the bullet and answer:
"I have been on the throne for ten years!"

"I have been on the throne for ten years..."

The Queen Mother muttered to herself, then asked:
"Empress, how many times has the Emperor selected concubines in the ten years since he ascended the throne?"

Queen Rouze lowered her head and answered silently:
"To answer your aunt's question, since His Majesty ascended the throne, he has not yet selected a concubine."

"According to the rules of our Qing Dynasty, how often do we select concubines?"

The empress dowager had been holding back her anger for many years, and suddenly she burst out at Su Mingzhe:

"Emperor, the youngest concubine in your harem should be 40 years old, right?" "Why, are you planning to follow the example of Emperor Shunzhi and become a monk after someone dies?"

"I dare not. I just don't want to waste people's time and money!"

Su Mingzhe felt a little aggrieved when facing the Empress Dowager's accusations.

As a man, he naturally wants to participate in the draft.

But Ruoxi had a bad temper. Every time the Queen proposed a beauty contest, Ruoxi would find a man at night and say she wanted to move out of the palace.

Su Mingzhe had no choice but to postpone the talent show again and again in order to comfort Ruoxi.

"Humph!"

When the Empress Dowager saw that her son insisted on defending Ruoxi, she snorted again, then turned her head away angrily, no longer thinking about these bad things.

In the eyes of this old lady, her eldest son’s life was not worth her concern. She just wanted to see her youngest son again before she died.

Seeing this, Su Mingzhe ordered someone to bring the program list and asked the old lady, the queen, and several concubines to choose the programs.

That's the good thing about being an emperor.

All the land in the world is the land of the king; the shores of the land are all the ministers of the king.

No matter how famous a troupe is, it can refuse invitations from ministers and princes, but it cannot refuse an imperial edict.

In order to prepare for Halloween for the Empress Dowager, Su Mingzhe had already issued an imperial decree. Every March, more than 60 of the country's most famous opera troupes and nearly 100 jugglers from all over the country were invited to the capital.

It can be said that the capital city during the Yongzheng period was ten times, or even dozens of times more prosperous than during the Kangxi period.

Of course, this is also thanks to the fact that 80% of the bannermen were taken away by the vassal kings.

Without the Bannermen's tyranny, the Han people dared to take to the streets with their heads held high.

Decades of relaxed cultural environment also led to the emergence of a large number of literati.

Before we knew it, the eleventh year of Yongzheng's reign had arrived.

The mystery of an ancient tomb from the Spring and Autumn Period has been solved.

The person who presided over the excavation of the ancient tomb was Ren Lanzhi, the Minister of Rites of the current dynasty.

Ren Lanzhi was knowledgeable and talented since childhood. In the 52nd year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, she won the second place in the imperial examination and had been serving in the Hanlin Academy, the Censorate, the Ministry of Rites and other noble departments.

It was because he was devoted to academic research that after Su Mingzhe ascended the throne and became emperor, he entrusted him with the "archaeology" tasks across the country.

After eleven years of hard work, Ren Lanzhi lived up to everyone's expectations and successfully compiled "A Study of the Genealogies of the Yan, Huang and Miao Ethnic Groups" for the Qing Dynasty.

In this "Kaojiu Tu", it is clearly recorded that the Manchus were called Jurchens before the Ming Dynasty.

Before the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Jurchens were called Sushen.

Before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Sushen was called Xishen and was one of the vassal states of the Zhou Dynasty.

The news would have ended here.

Today, an ancient tomb from the Spring and Autumn Period has been excavated.

After Ren Lanzhi identified some words on bamboo slips in the ancient tomb, he immediately used a secret memorial to report to the emperor that he had discovered historical materials from the pre-Qin period.

This historical bamboo slip from the Spring and Autumn Period clearly records that Sushen were the descendants of Xishen.

The Sushen was a vassal state of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the Xishen was one of the "hundred barbarians" tribes that paid tribute to the Shang Dynasty.

Going back further, the patriarch of Xishen was once a general of Emperor Shun, guarding "Buxian Mountain".

Buxian Mountain is now known as Changbai Mountain.

At this point.

The chain of evidence that the Manchus are descendants of Yan, Huang and Miao has finally come to a successful conclusion.

(End of this chapter)