The next day, the Emperor of Wei once again called his nine sons to Wende Hall.
Except for the seventh prince Hongyin and the ninth prince Hongxuan, the other princes have roughly guessed the purpose of their father summoning them to Wende Hall this time.
That is the unprecedented issue of "the prince accompanying the prisoner" in this year's scientific examination.
Although the prince who accompanied the prison did not have much power and was only responsible for supervising the entire process of the scientific examination, it is undeniable that the scientific examination was a national event related to the official system of the Wei Dynasty, and it was an excellent way to reasonably contact the officials.
Chance.
Therefore, all the princes who are passionate about the throne are eagerly watching this opportunity, trying to see if they can take advantage of this opportunity to win over some officials, such as the eldest son "Prince Hongli" and the second son "Prince Yong"
"Hongyu, the third son "King Xiang" Hongjing, the fourth son "King Yan" Hongjiang, and the fifth son "King Qing" Hongxin.
These princes originally thought that their father would decide on the princes who would accompany him in prison after discussing with the ministers. Therefore, in the past few days, they had been building relationships with the courtiers who had the right to speak in the court. After all, these princes had already left the cabinet.
As long as the prince was not blatantly acting as a clique for personal gain, and generally wooed the ministers of the DPRK, the Emperor of Wei would always turn a blind eye.
After all, these are the "rules of the game" for the princes of the Wei Dynasty to compete for the throne: within the limits allowed by the rules, do whatever it takes.
But what no one expected was that the Emperor of Wei finally decided to use "drawing lots" to select the princes who would accompany him to prison, which made the five princes who had been running around to build relationships these days very depressed.
However, they can accept this situation, except for Prince Hongli, who is temporarily the crown prince.
After all, as usual, Prince Hongli is most likely to be appointed as the accompanying prince. If there are no special circumstances, the other four princes who have been crowned kings will hardly be able to seize this opportunity, unless the Emperor of Wei intends to establish another one.
Only the crown prince will choose one from the last four.
The only thing that I can't understand is that the princes suddenly changed their minds when they heard that the candidates for the accompanying princes did not include the seventh prince Hongyin, the eighth prince Hongrun and the ninth prince Hongxuan.
At this time, the Emperor of Wei revealed the reason, and then they realized that it was the eighth prince Zhao Hongrun who was acting rogue and entangled with their father, which made the extremely troubled Emperor of Wei change his mind.
"Xiaoba?"
It can be seen that all the princes are very surprised, especially the sixth prince Zhao Hongzhao.
Because in their impression, their eighth brother was just a fun-loving person who never did anything serious. Why did he suddenly change now?
"It is said that Xiaoba was imprisoned in the clan house for unknown reasons a few days ago. He was imprisoned for seven days before being released... Could it be related to this incident?"
The second prince "King Yong" Hongyu glanced at Zhao Hongrun doubtfully, thoughtfully.
A few days ago, Zhao Hongrun was framed by Luo Wenzhong, a doctor in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and stayed overnight in Miss Su's Xiangge Pavilion in a waterside pavilion. He was eventually taken away by people from the clan. The clan did not disclose this matter. Emperor Wei
It was not disclosed, so the princes only knew that their eighth brother was imprisoned in the clan house for unknown reasons, but they had no way of knowing the reason.
"Looking at Xiaoba's intentions, it seems that he is determined to win this time?"
The third son "King Xiang" Hongjing also glanced at his eighth brother thoughtfully, and made secret calculations in his heart.
As one of the princes competing with Crown Prince Hongli for the throne, King Yong Hongyu and King Xiang Hongjing are currently the most likely princes to replace the Crown Prince. This is a well-known fact in both the government and the public.
They didn't care much about their eighth brother's involvement in this incident. After all, a fool could tell that Zhao Hongrun had no interest in the throne because of the random poem he made in Chui Gong Hall that day. He didn't care much about it just like the sixth prince Zhao Hongzhao.
He cannot be called an enemy of the four princes who have been crowned kings.
In contrast, Prince Hongli's face looked a little ugly.
It's no wonder, after all, if Zhao Hongrun hadn't intervened, he would have had the greatest chance of becoming a prisoner companion. But now, his chance was only about 10%, which made the Prince of the East Palace a little unhappy.
He stared at Zhao Hongrun fiercely.
At this time, Zhao Hongrun's attention was focused on drawing lots, and he did not care that his actions made the Prince of the East Palace a little unhappy. However, Yong Wang Hongyu and Xiang Wang Hongjing saw it clearly.
"..."
The two princes exchanged a look of understanding.
At this time, the Emperor of Wei had personally written the names of the nine emperors on nine pieces of paper. At the same time, the eunuch Tong Xian folded the nine pieces of paper respectively, shuffled them and laid them flat on the dragon table.
Seeing the Emperor Wei reaching out to grab one of the pieces of paper, the princes who were quite jealous of the position of accompanying the prisoner immediately tensed up and secretly prayed that they would be chosen.
But at this moment, Zhao Hongrun suddenly interrupted the emperor: "Father, this is unfair."
The princes looked at Zhao Hongrun in surprise, surprised that this brother actually said such words, but then they thought that this brother had not hesitated to start two rounds of fights with their father in order to go out of the palace to have fun, which was talked about in the palace.
, they were relieved.
Under the surprised gazes of the princes, the Emperor Wei did not show any anger after hearing this, but showed an expression of impatience.
"Why is it unfair? Didn't you say you wanted to draw lots?"
I saw Zhao Hongrun taking a few steps towards the dragon case, holding up his hands and explaining: "Your Majesty is not saying that drawing lots is unfair, but what I mean is that drawing lots like this is unfair... How do you know whether your father is secretly remembering it?"
Did you deliberately not choose the piece of paper that was given to Huang'er?"
"Is this... questioning my father?"
The expressions of the princes changed slightly, and they thought that this brother was so audacious that he dared to question their father like this.
However, what surprised them was that the Emperor Wei was still not angry. He frowned and asked, "What do you mean?"
"I beg your father to put these nine pieces of paper in a box that cannot be seen, mix them up, and then extract them... This is only fair, right?"
"..." The emperor frowned and glanced at Zhao Hongrun, and said impatiently: "Okay, in order to make you give up, I will do as you say."
After saying that, the emperor glanced at the eunuch Tong Xian beside him.
Tong Xian agreed, bowed and retreated from the Long Case.
He took a look at the wooden shelves in the Hall of Wende and saw a black and purple box on one of the shelves, so he carefully picked it up and placed it on the dragon table.
Seeing this scene, Zhao Hongrun breathed a sigh of relief, because this box was exactly what he ordered the Ministry of Industry to make yesterday.
He knew that the place where the Emperor of Wei summoned these princes should not be the Chui Gong Hall where the three Zhongshu ministers handled government affairs, but the Wende Hall, where the emperor rested.
Therefore, last night he asked Zongwei Mu Qing to sneak into the Wende Hall and secretly place the box here while no one was paying attention.
For this reason, Zhao Hongrun even spent hundreds of taels of silver to bribe a group of guards who were on duty outside Wende Hall, ordering them not to reveal the matter.
Don't think this is an ordinary box. In fact, it is a wooden box equipped with a mechanism.
It may not look impressive at first glance, but in fact, this wooden box is exquisitely made. There is a hidden compartment in it. The hidden compartment contains nine pieces of paper that Zhao Hongrun has prepared in advance, and they are also neatly stacked.
They are all neatly arranged. The only difference is that his name, Hongrun, is written on all nine pieces of paper.
The reason why the name Zhao Hongrun is not written is because according to custom, surnames are not added when addressing members of the royal family.
At this time, Tong Xian had put the nine pieces of paper into the wooden box, closed the lid, and then gently shook the wooden box a few times.
"Are you satisfied?" the emperor asked.
Zhao Hongrun smiled slightly, then raised his hands and said, "Can you let the emperor draw it?"
The emperor glanced at Zhao Hongrun with an unpredictable look, and raised his hand in a please gesture.
Seeing this, Zhao Hongrun stepped forward.
To be honest, he was really worried that his father would not allow him to smoke. After all, the sawdust actually contained eighteen pieces of paper at the moment, nine of which were written by the emperor, and the remaining nine were written by Zhao Hongrun who imitated the emperor's notes.
To change the positions of the two, you must press a hidden mechanism on the wooden box.
In full view of everyone, Zhao Hongrun pretended to hold the wooden box and shook it again, seemingly messing with the papers inside. In fact, he was just pressing the switch to replace the nine pieces of paper from the emperor.
After the preparations were completed, Zhao Hongrun placed the wooden box on the table, opened the lid, reached into the box, and took out a piece of paper.
"Huh? It seems that God's will is on the side of the emperor. Tsk tsk, you are so lucky."
Spreading out the paper, the word "Hongrun" was clearly written on it.
"Isn't this too coincidental?"
The princes looked at each other and said to themselves that if they had known this, I would have gone up and smoked him.
But some of the more careful ones among them had already begun to doubt the authenticity of this lot drawing. However, because this wooden box was taken casually from Wende Hall, they could not rashly question anything.
However, although they didn't say anything, the emperor showed a strange smile on his face: "Pull another one."
Suddenly, Zhao Hongrun's smile became a little unnatural.
"What's wrong? Draw another one." Looking at Zhao Hongrun, the emperor said calmly: "Are you afraid that another piece of paper with your name will be drawn out?"
"..." Zhao Hongrun said nonchalantly: "What did the emperor say? This paper was written by the emperor. How could it be all the names of the emperor's children?"
"Ha! That's not necessarily true." The emperor smiled faintly and reached into the wooden box: "Since you don't want to draw one, just pretend that I am here to draw another one for you."
As he said that, the emperor took out another piece of paper from the wooden box, spread it out and took a look. Sure enough, the word "Hongrun" was still written on it.
Only then did all the princes suddenly realize: It turned out that this boy had cheated!
After looking at Zhao Hongrun who had a straight face and said nothing, the emperor simply took out all the papers in the wooden box and spread them out one by one. Sure enough, Zhao Hongrun's name was written on all the papers.
"I can't tell, but you are really good at imitating my handwriting... How long did it take you to learn?" the emperor said sarcastically.
Seeing that the trick was exposed, Zhao Hongrun simply felt relieved, shrugged and said: "Do you still need to learn this? My father's handwriting is not very good, you can learn it after just a few glances."
"This scoundrel will make me angry when things get worse!"
The emperor breathed out a vicious breath.
"Draw lots again!"
"PS: This book has been signed A and is published by the publisher. I hope readers of this book can take a minute to vote for this book at the starting point. I would be very grateful."