Emperor Li Shimin held his hands on the city walls and looked at his eldest son below the city with extreme disappointment.
The fourteen-year-old young prince Cheng Qian was holding the head of Zhongxin, sitting on the ground and crying loudly, crying bitterly.
He was willing to die with his eyes open, his eyes wide open, and the extreme fear before his death was frozen in his eyes.
The sky is overcast.
The emperor's face became more gloomy.
The prince cried so much that he forgot himself and just shouted for Chengxin over and over again. His mind was filled with the screams of "Prince save me" when Chengxin was dragged to be beheaded.
"Send the prince back to the East Palace," Li Shimin said with a trembling voice. He couldn't understand that his son, Li Shimin, would do this for a music boy.
Xu Luoren went to the prince in person to persuade him and wanted to take the head away, but the prince held him tightly and refused to let go.
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"Who is behind Qin Ying, Wei Lingfu and Zhu Qingqing?"
Li Shimin asked Zhang Ananda.
"Xihua Temple has been sealed, but no more useful information has been found," Zhang Ananda said bluntly, "Maybe it's just a few demons with ulterior motives who use alchemy to confuse the East Palace for personal gain."
Li Shimin didn't believe it.
Qin Ying and others were Taoist priests in Chang'an, and they were quite famous at first. In the early years, Qin Ying even argued with Fa Lin of the Third Order Sect, and kept criticizing Fa Lin and the Third Order Sect, and even attacked Buddhism. He was a standard bearer.
It was precisely because Qin Ying was well-known among Taoist priests in Chang'an that he agreed to let him pray for the prince when the prince fell ill last year.
Cheng Qian was ill twice last year, and Qin Ying prayed for the prince twice and visited the East Palace frequently. This allowed him to get acquainted with the prince and even gain his trust. It was also at that time that Qin Ying came to the East Palace.
Chengxin has been taking care of the prince. After the two teenagers of about the same age experienced those days together, they actually developed feelings that no one could have imagined.
Li Shimin refused to admit such feelings, thinking that this was just Qin Ying's deliberate use of Chengxin's approach to confuse the East Palace.
Qin Ying and others did receive many benefits from inheriting the Qian Dynasty, such as the edict to build the Xihua Temple, and the special decree giving Qin Ying three thousand Taoist monks' ultimatums.
Not to mention that Qin Ying and the others also used the banner of East Palace to seek many illegitimate benefits.
The emperor decided that Cheng Xin was just deliberately approaching, seducing, and confusing the prince, and that he would never have any feelings.
But the prince was young and was deceived, deceived too deeply.
The emperor had deliberately neglected Cheng Qian before and even banned him from the East Palace, just to make him wake up. He even gave Wei Wangtai special favors in order to stimulate Cheng Qian.
But who knew that Cheng Qian had no repentance?
Even if he dared to break out of the East Palace to ask for someone from him today, Li Shimin was so angry that he killed him directly.
But seeing Cheng Qian hugging his head and crying, Li Shimin was disappointed and heartbroken. After all, he was only a young man and not sensible yet, so he handled it a bit harshly.
He suddenly thought of Wu Huaiyu.
"It would be great if Wu Qingyang was in Chang'an. Maybe this kind of thing wouldn't happen at all."
It is said that this incident indeed happened not long after Huaiyu left the capital. Not long after Huaiyu left the capital and went to Lingnan, Chengqian fell ill, and his illness was quite serious. Only then did the Taoist priest Qin Ying come to pray for the prince.
Therefore, the crowning ceremony of the crown prince was postponed.
Later, I fell ill again, and the crowning ceremony had to be postponed again.
Then the emperor discovered that the prince was actually having sex with a young boy.
At first I thought it was not a big deal, but who knew it would turn out to be this situation.
Wu Huaiyu has superb medical skills. If he had been in Beijing last year, the prince's illness might have been cured long ago. Moreover, Wu Huaiyu has always been a teacher that the prince trusted more. If something like this happened, Wu Huaiyu would probably have solved it with a few words of advice.
Thinking of this, Li Shimin felt a little regretful. In fact, he should have told Huaiyu about Cheng Qian's problems last year. Maybe he had a way to solve it, or he should have summoned Wu Huaiyu back to Beijing last winter to solve it face to face.
Looking at Cheng Qian now, Li Shimin is really irritable.
Although he also said things about Prince Shiwu in front of the ministers, they were actually just words of anger or just to put some pressure on the Prince.
Cheng Qian became the crown prince at the age of eight. He has been the crown prince for six years and is still the eldest son. He has no reason to establish another crown prince because of this.
But the emperor, who was about to become invincible, was really annoyed by the situation in front of him.
Xu Luoren forcibly snatched the head of Zhengzhi from the prince, and then Cheng Qian was escorted by Baiqi into a carriage and sent directly to the East Palace.
This time, the gate of the East Palace was completely blocked, and Xu Luoren, the general of the Forbidden Army, personally guarded it. Anyway, the emperor issued a strict order not to allow the prince to step out of the East Palace.
In the emperor's rage, many officials in the East Palace were held accountable and some were demoted, others were dismissed, and some were even exiled and executed.
Cheng Qian was sent back to the East Palace, feeling lost and confused.
His hair was disheveled and there was only hatred in his eyes.
He personally wrote a spiritual tablet for Chengxin, and then built a tomb for Chengxin in the East Palace Garden.
The prince stood guard in front of Zhongxin's tomb,
The emperor said that Cheng Xin was a bitch with ulterior motives and was trying to confuse the East Palace. However, Cheng Qian felt that when he was seriously ill twice last year, Cheng Xin accompanied him day and night without any clothes on. This kind of warmth was not given to him even by his biological brothers.
of,
Not to mention the palace eunuchs in the East Palace,
The two have been together day and night for more than a year, and gradually developed a special relationship. Chengqian feels that this is a real relationship, and the love is sincere.
Anyway, the relationship between the two teenagers is getting better and better, and in the end it is difficult to tell each other apart.
But the emperor killed Zheng Xin,
Even because of this, another king of Wei was appointed crown prince.
Cheng Qian is heartbroken, sad, and full of hatred.
Cheng Qian's behavior in the East Palace made the emperor even more angry.
The emperor issued an order to kill Qin Ying, Wei Lingfu, Zhu Qingxin and others, and to abolish Xihua Temple and Huisheng Temple. The Taoist priests of the two temples were forced to return to secular life. The three thousand Taoist certificates issued previously were invalidated, and the Taoist priests who had been converted to monks were ordered to return to secular life.
Qin Wei and others had private residences, property, wives and children, and were eligible for official positions.
However, although the thunder was furious and killed many people at once, the emperor kept this matter relatively secret.
He asked Zhang Liang, the imperial censor, to impeach Qin Ying, Wei Lingfu, Zhu Gengxin and others, but the charges were that they were practicing heresy and causing chaos, which did not involve the East Palace or the prince at all.
There is a paragraph in the bullet list that reads, "Taoist Qin Ying, who knows a lot about medical prescriptions, is free and banishes, lives with relatives, is sick, commits suicide, rapes his wife, is worse than a beast. His feelings are against the orthodox religion, his heart is like a wolf, and he is greedy.
The spirit of competition and the behavior of evil and filthy people.
I have a wife in my house, and I have a daughter-in-law at home. I use fat clothes and light clothes to go out and go through the thoroughfares..."
The main evidence of his impeachment was that he resorted to heretical magic, committed adultery with women, married wives, had children, kept slaves, and other illegal things.
The real crime was to confuse the East Palace and instigate the prince, which I didn't even dare to mention.
Of course, the emperor did not want these stains to remain on the prince.
So this time the processing was very fast, and it was a special case.
Even with Cheng Xin, the prince's male favorite, Li Shimin strictly ordered that no information be leaked out. With the execution of Cheng Xin, Qin Ying and others, Li Shimin hoped that this matter would be over and sealed forever.
