Know all about the secrets of the harem

Chapter 51 Disaster for the Country
But Mrs. Cao, as a mother, was also unwilling to let Li Cunxu fight outside all year round, making herself worry about it day and night.Li Cunxu said: "I dare not forget my father's last wish. This revenge must be avenged, and the military aircraft must not be delayed. Please forgive me, mother."

Then he led the army to conscript himself.In order to reassure his mother, Li Cunxu worked tirelessly to visit his mother four times a year when he was stationed in Yedu. The soldiers and common people were all moved by his benevolence and filial piety.

Mrs. Cao doted on her son very much, and she was very happy with Liu's intelligence and appearance. When Liu became an adult, she naturally thought of sending Liu to Li Cunxu to serve around her.

Once, when Li Cunxu went to say hello to his mother, Mrs. Cao intentionally let Mrs. Liu dress up and play the sheng to add to the fun. Afterwards, Mrs. Liu performed songs and dances for their mother and son.Li Cunxu has been proficient in rhythm since he was a child. He was pleasantly surprised when he heard Liu's melodious and melodious tunes, and he was fascinated by seeing Liu's charming, charming and charming.Seeing this, Mrs. Cao was secretly happy, so she decided on the spot to give Liu Shi to her son as a concubine.Li Cunxu thanked his mother and chose an auspicious day for the wedding.Soon, Mrs. Liu was named Mrs. Wei.

After that, Li Cunxu continued to fight with Houliang, and finally gradually gained the upper hand. On the eve of destroying Liang, he proclaimed himself emperor and established Houtang.Before marrying Liu, King Jin already had two wives, Han and Yi, with Han as the main concubine and Yi as the second concubine.At the beginning, the Liu family did not compete for the primary and secondary positions, and was content with Li Cunxu's favor.Later, when Liu gave birth to a son for Li Cunxu, his mood changed a lot.Li Cunxu saw that his son was very similar to him and loved him very much, so he named him Jiji.After giving birth, Li Cunxu loved the Liu family even more, and let the Liu family go with the army when he led the army.Liu Shi, who was clever since she was a child, also took the opportunity to serve her attentively, which made Li Cunxu fall in love with her, while Han Shi and Yi Shi were left out in the cold.

Ruthlessly drive away biological father
Because Liu had a son and was favored by Li Cunxu, she gradually had the desire to be a queen.But she is well aware of her own disadvantages, that is, her humble background, which cannot be compared with the other two wives from well-born families.While Mrs. Liu was distressed about her family background, her long-lost father came to her.The old man who missed his daughter eagerly did not expect his daughter to drive him out of the house cruelly.Li Cunxu heard that someone claimed to be the biological father of the Liu family and asked to enter the palace to meet his daughter, so he sent someone to find Yuan Jianfeng, the general who robbed the Liu family back then, and asked him to identify him.Li Cunxu was originally a filial son, and he wanted to recognize this long-lost father-in-law after confirmation, and at the same time find his biological father for Liu.

After Yuan Jianfeng recognized him, he said to Li Cunxu: "Your Majesty, this man is very similar to the father of Mrs. Liu whom I saw back then. At that time, he had a yellow beard, and I could still recognize him."

Li Cunxu was very happy after hearing this, and hurriedly sent someone to report the good news to Mrs. Liu.Mrs. Liu left her father when she was four or five years old, so it is difficult to remember clearly what happened back then, but since Yuan Jianfeng has identified him, it must be his biological father who has been separated for many years.In all fairness, Liu still wanted to recognize her father very much, but at this time she was competing with Mrs. Han for the position of queen, and she was still boasting of her noble birth in front of them.After Li Cunxu succeeded to the throne, the Tang Dynasty wanted to make Liu the queen, but Mrs. Cao thought that she was from a humble background and should not be considered, so Li Cunxu, a filial son, obeyed.Mrs. Liu is also very clear about this, so if she recognizes this poor father who has neither power nor money, her words will be self-defeating.Wouldn't it be impossible to win the throne of the queen who could still look for opportunities in the future?After weighing the pros and cons, Liu decided not to recognize the biological father.

Mrs. Liu immediately went to see Li Cunxu and said to him: "When my concubine left his hometown, his father had unfortunately died in the rebellion. I remember that I held my father's body and cried bitterly, so my concubine no longer had a biological father. In the world. Where did this old farmer come from? He must be a savage who came to extort money to gain wealth. Does your Majesty still remember the woman from the Gao family who pretended to be the Empress Dowager Shen during the reign of Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty?"

After hearing this, Li Cunxu felt that what she said made sense, because in his opinion, it was hard to conceive of denying his biological father, and besides, it was his beloved Liu Shi.Seeing that Li Cunxu believed his words, Mrs. Liu asked the guards to go out of the palace and beat his poor father with a board and drove him away.The old man was so angry that he passed out, woke up and cried loudly, and there was no news after he left.The cruel-hearted Liu forced his father to leave, and in the end he was bestowed to death by Emperor Mingzong Li Siyuan of the later Tang Dynasty, and he deserved it.

After all, Li Cunxu had doubts about Liu's denial of his biological father. In order to further find out the truth, he used his expertise in acting and dressing up to pretend to be an old man. He originally liked acting with actors, and he also had a stage name "" Li Tianxia".He carried a bag of yarrow (a kind of grass, which was used for divination in ancient times, and his son Jiji followed behind him wearing a broken straw hat, just like Liu's father practiced divination in medicine. Liu was sleeping After an afternoon nap, Jiji quietly walked to her bed and said loudly that Liu Yatui (as people called rural doctors and divination people at that time) had come to visit her daughter. When Liu woke up, she saw that it was her son and husband disguised to tease her. Furious, he picked up the board and hit Jiji. Li Cunxu hurriedly dissuaded her, telling her that she was just joking. Mrs. Liu took the opportunity to cry again, and Li Cunxu persuaded her to give up. From then on, Li Cunxu simply stopped making trouble , after all, a beauty is much more important than an old man.

This hurdle was finally avoided, and then, Mrs. Liu went to great lengths for the queen's position.She knew that the establishment of a queen was also a major matter for the court, and she had to win the support of powerful officials.So she secretly sent her confidant actors and eunuchs to win over Douluge, the prime minister, and Guo Chongtao, the privy envoy in charge of the military.Douluge was already good at playing around the wind, and he had long wanted to find an opportunity to curry favor with Li Cunxu's favored Liu family. When he saw Liu's sending someone to ask for help, he agreed.Guo Chongtao, on the other hand, was a little more upright, and at first he was unwilling to support the Liu family as queen, but because Guo Chongtao hated the eunuchs in power at that time, and often showed disrespectful words to the eunuchs in his speech, he aroused dissatisfaction among the eunuchs, and often said in front of Li Cunxu His bad words made Li Cunxu gradually suspicious of him.Guo Chongtao was restless, and he was also looking for good ways to avoid disasters.Seeing that Mrs. Liu took the initiative to send someone to contact him, his subordinates said to Guo Chongtao: "Your Majesty loves Mrs. Liu the most, and it will be a matter of time to establish a queen. Your Excellency, you might as well go ahead and ask your majesty to make Mrs. Liu the queen of the palace. Your majesty will definitely be grateful to you." Yes, and Mrs. Liu can remember your kindness, and with Mrs. Liu's support, the eunuch will not be able to harm you any more."

Guo Chongtao followed the advice of his subordinates, and the next day he joined forces with Dou Luge and other ministers to play Li Cunxu and asked Liu to be made queen.Li Cunxu was full of joy, so he made Liu the empress, made Han the noble concubine, and Yi the virtuous concubine.

After Li Cunxu dispatched a surprise army to destroy the back beam, he thought the world was peaceful, so he began to indulge in mediocrity. He was a different person from his heroic and resourceful before.Empress Liu was good at singing and dancing, and Li Cunxu liked to make up and act with actors. It happened that the couple had fun together in the palace.Empress Liu was satisfied and even more arrogant than before, even Li Cunxu had nothing to do with her.Li Cunxu once doted on another beautiful woman, and Empress Liu became jealous and wanted to get rid of her quickly.On this day, Li Cunxu sent someone to summon his subordinates to give Li Shaorong Renfu a banquet to show his comfort, because he had just lost his wife.During the conversation, Li Cunxu said smoothly: "Aiqing, please rest assured, I will definitely choose another beautiful woman for you to be my wife."

After hearing this, Empress Liu took the opportunity to ask someone to call the beautiful woman Li Cunxu was doting on, and said to Li Cunxu: "Your Majesty, please give her to General Li as his wife." , and then someone sent this beauty to Li Shaorong's house first.Li Cunxu was very unhappy and ignored Empress Liu for several days.

After Liu was canonized as a queen, instead of becoming Li Cunxu's virtuous helper and helping him govern the country, she and Li Cunxu gathered money together, greedy and stingy.Li Cunxu later died in the rebellious army, which had a lot to do with Empress Liu's perverse actions.

Li Cunxu began to listen to the eunuch's proposition, and divided the country's wealth into internal and external treasuries, and the money offered by prefectures and counties was included in the external treasury to serve as military and political expenses.The money contributed by the feudal towns was sent to the inner treasury for banquets, entertainment, and rewards for actors. In the end, the outer treasury often dried up and the funds were tight, while the money in the inner treasury piled up like a mountain.Empress Liu not only did not dissuade Li Cunxu, but instead sat back and enjoyed what he got, and even often regarded it as her own, and refused to contribute a little to meet the country's urgent needs.In the late Tang Dynasty, when the country was in decline, the people were struggling to live, and the officers and men were complaining about the lack of food and wages, Li Cunxu was still extravagant and unrestrained. The minister asked for the abolition of local exorbitant taxes to win the hearts of the people. Not only did Li Cunxu not listen, but he collected the second year's taxes in Henan in advance for himself. enjoy.In desperation, Dou Luge, the prime minister, begged to distribute some money from the inner treasury to reward the soldiers, so as to relieve the urgent need, and make up the full amount in the future.Empress Liu's face changed drastically when she heard that, and she went back to the house and took out two silver basins for daily use, and led the prince Manxi and three others out, and asked Douluge to sell to reward the soldiers.This kind of savage behavior was shameless, and Dou Luge had no choice but to leave.Empress Liu, who is greedy for money and extremely stingy, disregarded the safety of the country and only cared about her own enjoyment, so she sent herself and Li Cunxu to the road of death together.

Empress Liu is famous for being greedy and stingy, and she is not satisfied with possessing countless treasures in the inner treasury. In order to collect more money directly, she also sent people to sell goods and make profits from it, and became a merchant queen who was not doing business properly. extremely rare.In order to sell more products, Mrs. Liu named dried and fresh fruits after himself. This is not surprising in today's commodity society, but it seriously violated the requirements of ethics in the feudal era at that time, let alone a Queen.

Empress Liu once recognized Minister Zhang Quanyi as her adoptive father out of greed for money. After Hou Liang was destroyed by Later Tang, Zhang Quanyi returned to Later Tang.After Li Cunxu was stationed in Luoyang, he often took Empress Liu to Zhang Quanyi's house to play, eat and drink.Zhang Quanyi was a wealthy family at that time. Every time Li Cunxu and his wife came, they would do their best to serve them. The banquet was filled with delicacies, delicacies and fine wines.Empress Liu said to Li Cunxu: "My concubine suffered from war when I was young and unfortunately lost my parents. I often feel lonely and sad. Now that Mr. Zhang is so kind to us, I really want to worship him as a foster father." Li Cunxu agreed on the spot, and Empress Liu went After the ceremony, Zhang Quanyi ordered people to bring out a large number of treasures as a meeting gift for the adoptive daughter.After that, Empress Liu could not only go to Zhang Quanyi's adoptive father's house to have fun, but also often received Zhang Quanyi's expensive gifts, which invisibly added a shortcut to making money.And Zhang Quanyi is also a person who is good at observing words and demeanor, so he would not let go of this good opportunity, so he ordered people to give gifts to Empress Liu every festival.With the support of Empress Liu, a righteous daughter, she fundamentally preserved her power and wealth.

With a queen who is greedy and loves money, there will be officials who are good at collecting money.Li Cunxu appointed Kong Qian, who is very good at this aspect, to be the mediocre envoy. In order to collect as much wealth as possible, Kong Qian bypassed the feudal towns under the banner of reform and directly ordered the prefectures and counties to urge the payment of taxes, which has been abolished by Li Cunxu's explicit order. He also recovers.After collecting money, he was enshrined as an internal official. While satisfying Li Cunxu and his wife's extravagance, Kong Qian intensified his exploitation. Empress Liu's greed for money has reached the point of harming the country and the people.With the example of Kong Qian, other officials followed suit one after another, increasing exploitation layer by layer, causing the people to go into exile and the soldiers to starve and suffer from cold.Seeing this, the feudal towns everywhere also flattered Empress Liu in order to consolidate their power. Every time they donated property to the court, they had to prepare two copies, and one was dedicated to Empress Liu.The crisis of the country is getting bigger and bigger, but Empress Liu and Li Cunxu only care about pleasure, completely ignoring these cruel realities that have threatened their lives.

Empress Liu was not only greedy for money and disordered the country, but also directly intervened in the government and killed ministers arbitrarily.Guo Chongtao had done his best to make him a queen, but after Guo Chongtao led the army to pacify the Sichuan area, some eunuchs framed Queen Liu for embezzling Guo Chongtao's Sichuan property and wanted to rebel on their own because they could not get money.Empress Liu didn't know right from wrong. When Li Cunxu listened to the slander and sent someone to investigate Guo Chongtao, she issued a killing order to the envoy and destroyed the pillars of the country herself.

Empress Liu and Li Cunxu's rebellious behavior led to the crisis. The soldiers sold their wives and children because of lack of food, or went to the mountains to dig wild vegetables to satisfy their hunger, but some of them often died of starvation on the way.There were complaints in the army, but Li Cunxu was still addicted to hunting, and Empress Liu was even more intoxicated in Qian's eyes, and she didn't know her fate.

After Li Cunxu let Empress Liu kill Guo Chongtao in vain, he became suspicious and killed the whole family of the hero Zhu Youqian, which made the generals feel in danger. First, there was a great chaos in Sichuan, and then Li Cunxu refused to allow Dr. Township, and aroused mutiny.Li Cunxu first sent Yuan Xingqin to suppress, but was defeated.They had no choice but to send Li Siyuan, who was always suspicious, to go. In the end, Li Siyuan also joined the mutiny soldiers and returned to Luoyang.Li Cunxu died in the Luoyang mutiny. When he was dying, he asked Empress Liu to wait on him. Empress Liu only sent someone to deliver the buttermilk. As soon as he drank a cup, Li Cunxu died.

When Empress Liu learned of Li Cunxu's death, she did not go to visit. Instead, she packed up the gold and silver and fled with Li Cunxu's younger brother Li Cunwo under the protection of the cavalry, thinking of temporarily avoiding Jinyang.For protection on the road, Empress Liu competed with Li Cunwo to sleep together in adultery. When they arrived at the foot of Jinyang City, the guard hated her for being greedy and disrespectful to the soldiers, and refused to open the city gate to take him in.

Li Cunwo was later killed by his subordinates.Empress Liu was desperate, so she took out some money to build a nunnery and became a nun.

When Li Siyuan heard that Empress Liu had fled to Jinyang to become a nun, he did not let the former empress who had wronged the country go, and sent someone to make her commit suicide.Empress Liu, who coveted wealth and honor and refused to recognize her biological father, ended her stingy and cruel life from then on.The greed for money is for pleasure, but she didn't expect that the greed for money can also kill people.Water can carry a boat and capsize it, so why not money? Money can make people rich, but it can also make people degenerate or even kill them.

Concubine Zheng: The Rebellion in the Wanli Harem
She is a power-hungry strong woman, full of ambitions, unscrupulous and cunning in order to achieve the goal of taking power.She disturbed the peace inside and outside the court, corruption and degeneration, and scattered people; she disturbed the Wanli country and mountains, causing ups and downs of court struggles in the Wanli Dynasty, and became an important factor for social instability in the late Ming Dynasty.She can be described as a romantic figure active in the Wanli Dynasty.She is the concubine Zheng Gui who made the Ming Palace Three Cases.

Song Shenzong became emperor at the age of 10, took charge of the government at the age of 20, and rarely went to court due to physical reasons at the age of 24. After the age of 27, he simply retired to the palace gate and ignored the government.

Since the 14th year of Wanli (1586), the emperor has not stepped out of the palace until his death, ignoring the government for more than 30 years.Wanli ascended the throne at the age of 10 and was a veritable young emperor.In other words, the most important years of his life were spent in Houguan.Xia Yunyi, a scholar of the late Ming Dynasty, described: "Since the imperial concubine became more and more favored, she gradually became tired and diligent, and the imperial court was rare." Indeed, the emperor's greatest pleasure was to live and die in the harem's blush. face, unwilling to disturb his soft dream by those boring memorials.Even the chief assistant of the cabinet is difficult to see the emperor himself; most of the memorials of the ministers are "remained in China" without any processing;In his opinion, those official uniforms of different grades are similar to whoever wears them, and it has nothing to do with him.According to the official system of the Ming Dynasty, the above positions can only be vacant without the emperor's order. Therefore, many important positions in the government have been vacant for a long time.

By the 34th year of Wanli (1606), the scholar Shen Li complained to the emperor. The Minister of the Ministry of Officials had been missing for three years, and the censor of Zuodu had been missing for one year. There is only one servant in the Ministry of Rites, and only one Shangshu in the Ministry of Households.There are a total of 31 officials in the Ministry of the Ministry, and 24 are vacant. If those officials who do not abide by their duties are removed, there will be almost no one in the court.Such incomplete government agencies are rare in Chinese history.The government has reached this point, and the emperor is still indifferent.Emperor Wanli even omitted the solemn temple sacrifices, and similar red tapes were all performed by officials.

In Wanli's harem, he only favored Concubine Zheng. Zheng's father was Zheng Chengxian, who was an official to the governor.

When he first became an official, the Zheng family was in Shupin.She is beautiful and outstanding, and she is witty and intelligent. She loves to read, has strategies, and is better at flattering.Therefore, the Zheng family soon won the favor of Shenzong, and was named a noble concubine in the 11th year of Wanli (1583), and her status even jumped above that of Wang Gongfei, who had given birth to the eldest son of the emperor.Since Concubine Zheng cared deeply about Shenzong and encouraged him to take charge of the government, she was regarded by Shenzong as a bosom friend.Therefore, regardless of emotion or reason, Shenzong's love and reliance on Concubine Zheng could not be increased.

In the early years of Wanli, Empress Dowager Li married Shenzong's original wife, the Queen's family of a famous family in the capital.Queen Wang is a dignified and courteous person, serving the Empress Dowager attentively and thoughtfully, and obedient to Shenzong every step of the way.But Shenzong didn't like her.In addition, she didn't give birth to Shenzong's son, so she didn't mind about Shenzong's search for flowers and willows, and only wanted to be safe.

(End of this chapter)