Chapter 21 The eleventh prince is not his own

In the sixth year of Huangyou (1054), the 31-year-old Concubine Zhang Gui suddenly fell ill and died.Concubine Zhang Guifei is Zhao Zhen's favorite woman besides his mother. Originally, the Zhang family had the opportunity to be the queen. Due to the intervention of the Queen Mother Liu and her own assertion, she made the Guo family the queen and the Zhang family as the talent. After Empress Guo was abolished, Zhao Zhen asked Song Shou to draw up the post-election edict, which contained the words "seeking virtue and governing the country", which meant selecting the empress from educated families.Although the Empress Dowager Liu is no longer alive, and Zhao Zhen has also been in charge of the government, he still failed to achieve his wish on the post-election issue.At that time, left and right brought a woman surnamed Chen into the palace, which pleased Zhao Zhen.Chen was the daughter of a tea merchant in Shouzhou. Her father obtained a small official by means of donations. He did not have the conditions of a noble family. Under the strong opposition of the ministers, Zhao Zhen had to choose another queen, and reluctantly made Cao the famous general in the early Song Dynasty. Bin's granddaughter was elected queen.

Due to dissatisfaction after the election, Zhao Zhen has always pretended to be Zhang Meiren in his heart. Although Zhang Meiren's position as a noble concubine was promoted by the so-called meritorious escort during the palace change, Zhang Meiren's status in Zhao Zhen's mind is higher than that of Zhang Meiren. Both queens Guo and Cao are important. Concubine Zhang Guifei died, and Zhao Zhen was in great pain. With the support of the left and right eunuchs, he decided to mourn Concubine Zhang Guifei with the gift of a queen. To pay homage to the clan and ministers to pay a funeral.Worried about opposition from the government and the public, Zhao Zhen simply announced on the fourth day of the funeral that he would pursue Concubine Zhang as empress and bestow the posthumous posthumous title of Wen Cheng.This is the unheard of event of exceeding the etiquette of two queens who died in one lifetime.Although the officials strongly opposed it, Zhao Zhen turned a deaf ear and ignored it at all.Zhao Zhen finally became a real man, but not for state affairs, but for his beloved woman.For the sake of this beloved woman, Zhao Zhen ordered the court to stop for seven days, and entertainment activities were banned in the capital for one month.

Seeing that Zhao Zhen attached so much importance to the funeral of Empress Wen Cheng, Zhi Zhi Gao Wang Zhu thought about it, and wanted to take this opportunity to show courteousness to Zhao Zhen in order to seek promotion.He cooperated with Shi Quanbin, the internal envoy, and urged Zhao Zhen to order the prime minister to protect the funeral and Sun Mian to read the book. Zhao Zhen was planning to hold a glamorous funeral for Empress Wen Cheng, Wang Zhu and Shi Quanbin's suggestion hit his heart, and immediately ordered the prime minister to protect the funeral and Sun Mian to read the book.

At this time Pang Ji had already resigned, and his successor was Chen Zhizhong. As long as he was a high-ranking official with a high salary, he didn't care about moral integrity or whether he was polite or not.Sun Mian was different. He entered the imperial court to protest immediately after receiving the decree, saying that His Majesty ordered him to read the book, so naturally he dared not disobey, but his current position is the deputy envoy of the Privy Council, not the official who read the book. of.He pretended to be embarrassed and said: "If the minister does not read the book, he violates the imperial decree; if he reads the book, he exceeds his authority. Only by asking His Majesty to dismiss the minister, can the minister be acquitted."

Zhao Zhen stared at the stubborn Sun Mian without saying a word. The next day, Zhao Zhen sent an imperial edict to dismiss Sun Mian as the deputy envoy of the Privy Council, and went to Hangzhou to be the prefect. Sun Mian received the edict and said happily: "Okay! You have left the circle of right and wrong!" He left Beijing and went to Hangzhou to take up his post at sunrise. Zhao Zhen issued another imperial edict, ordering Liu Hang, a political adviser, to be the guardian envoy of Empress Wencheng's tomb. After the funeral, Zhao Zhen discussed the meritorious officials of the funeral, promoted Liu Hang to Tongping Zhangshi, and added Wang Zhu as a Hanlin bachelor. Some of the other meritorious personnel were promoted to officials, and some got a big red envelope. After a busy day, they finally gained something .

Zhao Zhen admired the relatives of Empress Wencheng even more, and bestowed her father Zhang Yao as the county king and her uncle Zhang Yaozuo as the grand master. Chen Zhizhong disregarded his reputation at the funeral of Empress Wen Cheng, which was in stark contrast to Sun Mian's resignation and was criticized by scholars and admonishers.Fan Zhen of the Court of Admonishment and Zhao Yan, the censor in the palace, successively impeached him, saying that he was not a prime minister, but just a wine bag and rice bag. Zhao Zhen has always been uncertain about who he should employ. After reading the memorials of Fan Zhen and others, he became dissatisfied with Chen Zhizhong and dismissed him immediately.

Zhao Zhen dismissed Chen Zhizhong, and of course he had to choose a new prime minister. At this time, there are no more loyal and upright ministers such as Fan Zhongyan, Wen Yanbo, and Fu Bi. These three people are honest and honest, and they don't like flattery. , were all released from Beijing.Fan Zhongyan died in the fourth year of Huangyou (1052).Only Fubi and Wen Yanbo are still alive, one is in Bingzhou and the other is in Xuzhou.Zhao Zhen wanted to call the two of them, but was hesitant.It happened that Wang Suyin, a direct scholar of the Privy Council, entered the performance. After the matter was finished, Zhao Zhen specially stayed him and said to him: "You are the son of the old Prime Minister Wang Dan, and I am old in the world. I trust you. Now I want Choose a phase, who do you think is suitable?"

Wang Su replied: "Your Majesty is aware, but those who teach eunuchs and concubines who don't know their names can serve as them." His attitude was very clear, that is, the prime minister should not collude with eunuchs or the inner court. Zhao Zhen said: "According to what you played, then only Fu Bi is left." Wang Sudun first congratulated and said: "Your Majesty has indeed won a man!" Zhao Zhen asked again: "How about Wen Yanbo?" Wang Su replied, "Wen Yanbo is also a prime minister." Wang Su's recommendation strengthened Zhao Zhen's idea of ​​using Fu Bi and Wen Yanbo.The next day, an imperial edict was issued to summon the two men to return to the court and grant Tongping Zhangshi.

The next year, it was changed to the first year of Jiayou (1056). At this time, there were no major changes in the interior and exterior, and it was the time of peace.Unexpectedly, Zhao Zhen suddenly fell ill and was unable to go to the court for several days. The ministers were worried and uneasy. In order to stabilize the overall situation, the two prime ministers, Wen Yanbo and Fu Bi, slept in the palace at night to manage the affairs of the court, so that there was no chaos in the affairs of the court. . During Zhao Zhen's illness, Wen Yanbo proposed to confer the crown prince and establish a crown prince.Zhao Zhen was afraid that he would be in trouble, so he agreed vaguely, but when he recovered from his illness, he put the matter aside again.

Seeing that the emperor has not made any movement on the establishment of the crown prince, Fan Zhen of Zhijianyuan thinks that there is one thing in the world that is more important than the establishment of the crown prince?So Shangshu urged Zhao Zhen to be the crown prince. Zhao Zhen said to him almost crying: "It's good for you to ask for a crown prince, and I know your loyalty, but do you know why I haven't established a crown prince for so long?" Fan Zhen shook his head, expressing that he did not know. "I want to have a biological son!" Zhao Zhen said decisively, "For the establishment of the reserve, wait a few more years!"

It turned out that although Zhao Zhen was the son of heaven, besides the empress, there were hundreds of concubines and beauties in the harem, but none of these women's bellies were up to par, and none of them could bear him a son.Just in case, Empress Cao adopted an heir from the clan, Zhao Zongshi who will be mentioned later.But this is just a backup, unless it is a last resort, Zhao Zhen really doesn't want to use this backup prince. Fan Zhen is a stubborn person, he seems to be a bit determined not to hit the south wall and not turn back. Seeing that Zhao Zhen did not accept his request for memorials, within a hundred days, he submitted nineteen memorials in a row, and his beard turned white. Zhao Zhen felt that Fan Zhen was very pitiful and loyal, and it was indeed not wrong to persuade himself to establish a reserve as soon as possible. This is also the duty of the speech officer.He knew that if he didn't accept his petition, he would keep pestering her forever.In desperation, an imperial edict was issued to transfer Fan Zhen from the Court of Admonishment, and to serve as a prison picket envoy. Fan Zhen was transferred from Zhijianyuan, and the voices of the ministers to invite him to be appointed did not stop. Later, Zaifu Fubi, Wen Yanbo, Wang Yaochen and others played the invitation one after another. No matter what these people say, Zhao Zhen just doesn't listen, because among these people, Bao Zheng's attitude is the most resolute, in order to reduce trouble, Zhao Zhen adopted the same method, transferred Bao Zheng to another post, and became the magistrate of Kaifeng Mansion . Bao Zheng, courtesy name Xiren, was born in Hefei, Luzhou.In the end, he passed the Jinshi examination, was awarded as a Dali judge, and served as the county magistrate of Jianchang County.Because his parents were old, Bao Zheng resigned and did not take up his post.Bao Zheng resigned from the official position and went home to support the elderly after he got the official position of prison and state taxation, but his parents didn't want him to leave.A few years later, his parents passed away one after another. Bao Zheng built a hut next to his parents' tombs. Until the mourning period expired, he still hesitated and couldn't bear to leave. It took a long time before Bao Zheng was dispatched to serve as the county magistrate of Tianchang County.A thief cut off the tongue of a cow, and the owner of the cow came to complain.Bao Zheng said: "The cow has no tongue, so it is useless. Go home and kill the cow, and you can sell it for some money." The owner of the cow felt that the county magistrate was too unreasonable. He came to sue. Instead of upholding justice, he arrested the thief who cut off the tongue of the cow, but told him to go back and kill the cow and sell it for a few dollars.Some said dissatisfied: "Xiaomin came to report the crime! The county magistrate didn't uphold justice for Xiaomin, but told Xiaomin to go home and kill the cow. What's the reason?" Bao Zheng pretended to be angry and said: "How much is a cow's tongue worth? Do you still bother me with such a trivial matter?" Then he ordered the yamen servant to throw the complaining cow owner out. The owner of the cow went home in humiliation, killed the tongueless cow, and sold the beef in the market. Not long after, someone came to sue again, saying that someone had killed the farm cattle privately.Cattle are used to cultivate the land, and there have been regulations in all dynasties that prohibit indiscriminate killing of cattle for farming, and killing cattle is illegal. When Bao Zheng saw someone complaining, he was directly promoted to the hall. After the yamen servant brought the complainant up, Bao Zheng asked, "Why did you cut off the cow's tongue? You really did it." The complainant was shocked and confessed without torture.It turned out that he really cut off the cow's tongue. Seeing that the county magistrate ignored the cow owner's accusation and wanted to deal a bigger blow to the cow owner, he came to accuse the cow owner of killing the farm cattle without authorization.Just fell into Bao Zheng's trap. Bao Zheng was famous at that time for his ability to solve cases like a god.Later, he moved to Duanzhou Zhizhou and was promoted to Dianzhong Cheng.Inkstones were produced in Duanzhou, and his predecessor Zhizhou, in the name of paying tribute, collected dozens of times more inkstones at will and gave them to the dignitaries.Bao Zheng ordered the craftsmen to make only according to the number of tribute to the court.A year passed, and he did not take a single inkstone home. Soon after, Bao Zheng was awarded the title of supervisory censor, plus a supervisory envoy. He successively served as a judge of the household department of the third division, as a transfer envoy of Jingdong, and was transferred to Shangshu Gongyuan Yuanwailang and Zhijixianyuan. He was transferred to Shaanxi and Hebei. He went to Beijing to serve as the deputy envoy of the household department of the third department.Tianzhang Pavilion waited for Zhizhi, Zhijianyuan, Longtu Pavilion direct bachelor, and served as a censor in the palace. Bao Zheng was a resolute man in the court, and the nobles and eunuchs were all afraid of him, and they restrained themselves in life and work.People regard Bao Zheng's smile as clearer than the water of the Yellow River. All the old and young, women and children know his name, and call him "Bao Daizhi" or Bao Longtu, because he was a scholar of Longtuge.People in Beijing said to him: "If you don't reach the joints, there is Lord Yan Bao Lao." In the folk novel Bao Gongan, half of the stories about Bao Gongan are true, and the rest are all fabricated by novelists.As for saying that the sun is broken by day and the yin is broken by night, it is a casual remark and cannot be taken seriously. In the third year of Jiayou (1058), Bao Zheng was appointed as Yushi Zhongcheng, and his style of speaking out and admonishing remained unchanged.Shangzou Zhao Zhen said: "The crown prince has been vacant for a long time, and everyone in the world is worried. Your Majesty has hesitated for a long time. Why?" Zhao Zhen asked: "You talked about this matter again, so I ask you, who can be the crown prince?" Bao Zheng said: "I don't have much talent. I have been favored by the emperor to take up an official position in the court. The reason why I ask the emperor to appoint a prince in advance is for the long-term consideration of the country. Your Majesty asked me who I want to be the prince, which is suspicious of me. I am old. At seventy and without a son, he is not one who seeks benefits." Zhao Zhen said happily: "I will consider this matter slowly." It turned out that Bao Zheng had a son named Bao Guan who married his wife Cui Shi. Since Cui Shi died in his prime, he would not marry again because of chastity, so Bao Zheng played Zhao Zhen face to face, claiming to have no children.Bao Zheng had a concubine, Song Shi, who left Bao's house when she was pregnant, and gave birth to a son in her mother's house. Cui Shi secretly adopted her, and Bao Zheng didn't know about it.In the sixth year of Jiayou (1061), Bao Zheng was promoted to the deputy envoy of the Privy Council. He died of illness the following year. Before he died, Cui explained to his father-in-law that he had a son and brought him into Bao's mansion.Bao Zheng named it Zong.In his will, he said: "If heirs become officials, they should abide by the innocence of the family. If they commit stolen goods, they will not be released to the family in life, and they will not be buried in the tomb after death. If they do not follow my will, they are not my descendants." After Bao Zheng's death, Zhao Zhen issued an edict to posthumously present the Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites with the posthumous posthumous title of Xiaosu.The matter of Bao Zheng is finished here. Zhao Zhen is not in a hurry on the surface, but in fact he is more anxious than anyone else in his heart. In order to have a son for himself, he made a plan to make a son and recall Yang Meiren who was expelled from the palace.Yang Meiren is the in-law of Empress Dowager Liu. She has both sex and art. After re-entering the palace, she was promoted to Jieyu, and later added Xiuyuan and Xiuyi. None of the following concubines could complete the task of giving birth to a son for Zhao Zhen. Zhao Zhen saw that the women in the palace could not bear him a son, so he implemented the second step of the plan, ordering ten girls from good families to be selected from the people to enter the palace, known as the ten pavilions in the palace, and the ten girls were summoned in turn every night.Although the ten women who were summoned into the palace had pretty faces, their qualities were not very good. Seeing that the emperor favored them so much, they felt a little flustered. They didn't know what their surnames were. Chickens and dogs are restless, but their stomachs are still unsatisfactory, and none of them can conceive a dragon species.Yushi Zhongcheng Han Jiang secretly reported to Zhao Zhen the fact that the ten pavilions in the palace were not famous. In a rage, Zhao Zhen drove all ten women out of the palace, and at the same time released one or two hundred court ladies. In the fourth year of Jiayou (1059), Wen Yanbo resigned due to old illness, Fu Bi also stayed at home with Ding's mother's worries, Liu Hang and the privy envoy Wang Deyong were also dismissed successively, Han Qi was appointed as Tongping, Song Xiang, Tian Kuang is a privy envoy, and Zhang Sheng is a privy envoy. After Ouyang Xiu and Bao Zheng, Han Qi once again proposed to Zhao Zhen the matter of establishing a reserve.He said that the establishment of the emperor's heir is related to the safety of the world, and he persuaded Zhao Zhen to put the country and the country as the most important thing, and appoint a heir as soon as possible. Zhao Zhen said that someone in the harem was already pregnant, and he would talk about it after giving birth, but another daughter was born. Han Qi presented "The Biography of Kong Guang in the Han Dynasty" to Zhao Zhen and said: "Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty has no son, and he made the son of the emperor's younger brother to be the prince. He is just a mediocre emperor. Even so, what about a wise emperor like your majesty? Taizu The emperor decides the world with his hands, but it is passed on to the emperor's younger brother, not to the prince, why doesn't your majesty follow the example of the ancestors and choose the clan as the prince?" Zhao Zhen is still hesitant. In the sixth year of Jiayou (1061), Zeng Gongliang and Han Qi were in charge of Tongping Zhangshi, Ouyang Xiu was in charge of political affairs, and Sima Guang was in charge of Zhijianyuan. Prince. In August of the seventh year, Zhao Zhen ordered Wang Yu, a Hanlin scholar, to make Zhao Zongshi the crown prince. As Zhao Zongshi said earlier, Empress Cao asked Zhao Zhen to take him into the palace and bring him up.He has always lived in the palace. In November of the fourth year of Xiyou (1059), his biological father Zhao Yunrang, the king of Runan, died of illness.At the end of the mourning period, he was appointed as the prince by imperial edict and changed his name to Shu. In fact, Zhao Zongshi was not very interested in the position of prince. After receiving the appointment from Zongzheng Temple, he repeatedly declined and refused to accept it.In ancient China, this is a very interesting thing. In order to obtain the right to inherit the throne, many clan children fought with each other, and even killed each other.But Zhao Zongshi sincerely refused to give up, and the two formed a sharp contrast. Zhao Zongshi's reluctance to be the crown prince was related to his maturity and observance of filial piety. On the one hand, he was attending his father's funeral at that time, and he didn't want to lose his filial piety because of his position as prince. Not sure, I don't know whether it is a disaster or a blessing.Zhou Mengyang, the secretary of the palace, once asked him why he did not obey the edict.He said: "I don't want to seek blessings, I really want to avoid disasters!" Zhou Mengyang enlightened and said: "Now the world knows that you are the heir to the throne, and you have repeatedly refused to accept it. If someone else ascends the throne, will you be safe?" Zhou Mengyang's words hit the nail on the head, and it was also a very real problem that Zhao Zongshi faced. Once someone else became the prince, Zhao Zongshi would not only never have peace, but would also be in danger of his life. After hearing this, Zhao Zongshi suddenly realized, and was ordered to enter the palace.Before entering the palace, he also said to his family: "You must take good care of the house. If the emperor has a more suitable candidate, I will come back immediately." It seems that he regards entering the palace as a prince as going out to do business , If the business fails, he will come back. Half a year later, that is, in March of the eighth year of Jiayou (1063), Zhao Zhen died in the Funing Palace, and the crown prince Zhao Shu was the emperor.In total, Zhao Zhen reigned for forty-two years, changed his Yuan nine times, and lived to be fifty-four years old. Zhao Zhen was the longest reigning emperor in the Song Dynasty, and his temple name was Renzong after his death.