The first thousand three hundred and eighty-two chapters
The lively and vigorous Xuanping 19th Year, like previous years, ended with the end of the fiscal expenditure budget meeting, and ushered in the New Year's State Banquet on New Year's Eve!
At this year's New Year's state banquet, Li Xuan, as usual, hosted military and political dignitaries, important scientists, and some outstanding entrepreneurs, workers' representatives, farmers' representatives and other civilian figures.
But what is different from the New Year's State Banquet in previous years is that at this year's New Year's State Banquet, the four older princes also accompanied the Holy Emperor Li Xuan to attend, and stood beside Li Xuan to receive many subjects.
And this situation attracted a lot of attention!
Because in the past ten years or so, Li Xuan has never brought the prince to attend a New Year's State Banquet, which seems to be just a banquet, but in fact has a very strong political atmosphere.
Even the princes of the Holy Emperor have rarely appeared in public, let alone in such extremely political occasions.
In the past ten years or so, in order to prevent the princes from being influenced by the outside world, Li Xuan has been strictly controlling the contact between ministers and princes. Of course, this control is only superficial and in public.
Privately, these princes have more or less contact with the outside world. They communicate with the outside world through teachers in the Royal Primary School or even ordinary palace maids or people from their uncle's family.
Li Xuan had always known about this kind of contact, but he couldn't have stopped it without too much effort.
After all, it is impossible for Li Xuan to truly isolate the princes and keep them from worldly affairs. In fact, Li Xuan is preparing to initially let these princes come to the forefront, and deeply participate in military and political affairs, and inspect them through practical training.
Select the crown prince in Li Xuan's mind.
It is now the last day of the nineteenth year of Xuanping. Li Xuan already has eight sons. Well, actually there are eleven princes born in these years, but even if Li Xuan is a time traveler, even if Li Xuan is a time traveler,
He was the emperor, and he vigorously promoted the development of modern medicine in these years, but he was unable to solve the risk of dystocia for the concubines in the harem and the diseases that affected the princes.
Over the years, one prince died in childbirth, and two others died in infancy.
Therefore, there are currently only eight surviving princes.
Among these eight princes, the youngest one is still a baby, while the oldest one is fifteen years old.
The eldest son of the emperor, Li Huan, born to Concubine Ye Shu, is already fifteen years old this year.
The second son of the emperor, Li Han, born to Concubine Wang De, is also fifteen years old this year.
The third son of the emperor, Li Fang, born to Concubine Kang Kang of Song Dynasty, is twelve years old this year.
The fourth prince and eldest son born to Empress Dong is eleven years old this year.
Of the remaining four princes, the fifth prince is eight years old, the sixth prince is seven years old, the seventh prince is three years old, and the eighth prince was just born last year and is only four months old.
Today, the four older princes accompanied Li Xuan to the New Year's State Banquet. At the beginning, these four people followed Li Xuan to receive many subjects one by one. After the banquet began.
Li Xuan was naturally sitting alone on the dragon platform as before!
The other ministers took their seats below, but the seats of these four princes were not among the ministers, nor next to Li Xuan, but on the left and right sides below Li Xuan.
Many of the subjects below, especially the military and political officials, were always paying attention to the four princes when they attended the banquet with Li Xuan, and they were also paying attention to the attitude of the Holy Emperor Li Xuan towards the four princes.
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Why so much concern?
Because Li Xuan suddenly brought the four princes to the New Year state banquet, he almost directly told the officials: "I am ready to establish a heir apparent!"
On the issue of establishing the crown prince, the Holy Emperor has always fought against all opinions and did not allow any ministers to express any opinions. Any ministers who made mistakes on the issue of establishing the crown prince, without exception, were all expelled from the court.
Those who are more serious will be dismissed from office, while those who are less serious will be demoted.
Even the Empress Dowager Bai could not change the emperor's toughness on the issue of establishing a crown prince. The Empress Dowager Bai had talked about establishing a crown prince several times in the early years, but every time Li Xuan refused to discuss the relevant issues with words. Later, the Empress Dowager Bai
He also knew that the issue of establishing a reserve was a matter of principle for his son and was not something that could be discussed at all, so he simply stopped talking about it.
Empress Dowager Bai's words were useless, and the other concubines, including Empress Dong, were even more reluctant to speak easily. The only one who sought death was Concubine Xu Zhuang, the biological mother of the fifth son of the emperor. In the early years, Li Xuan favored her.
Li Xuan acted coquettishly in front of Xuan and said that her son was the best candidate to be the crown prince. Li Xuan got angry on the spot. Later, Concubine Xu Zhuang was deprived of her concubine title and demoted to a concubine for "making irresponsible remarks about the country's foundation." Later, the emperor's fifth son was also dismissed.
He was sent to Queen Mother Bai and raised by Queen Mother Bai.
There is Xu Zhuang Concubine, no, Xu Zhuang Concubine is an example. After so many years, many harem concubines did not dare to raise any question about establishing a heir in front of Li Xuan, including Empress Dong.
Everyone knows that the matter of establishing a prince cannot be discussed, but it does not mean that they do not pay attention to the issue of establishing a prince. On the contrary, as the princes gradually grow up, whether they are the concubines in the harem or the courtiers, they are more and more concerned about the issue of establishing a prince.
Pay more and more attention.
But no matter what, Li Xuan never revealed any word about the issue of establishing a prince, so that now the courtiers don't even know whether Li Xuan plans to establish a virtuous person or an elder.
And today, Li Xuan kept the four princes by his side, which undoubtedly released a very critical political signal, that is, after suppressing the issue of the prince for more than ten years, the Holy Emperor finally took the initiative to bring this issue to the fore.
mesa.
This kind of statement does not require any words. You only need to look at today to understand.
After all, everyone is a smart person. If you think about it for a moment, you can figure out that the meaning of Li Xuan's move is undoubtedly to let the four princes meet with the ministers in advance, and by the way, tell the ministers that I plan to establish a heir, and
The prince was most likely chosen from these four princes.
Similarly, the four princes who were sitting in their respective seats and receiving the gazes of hundreds of subjects also knew at this time that today's occasion was extremely important to them, so although they were young, they
But they all tried their best to maintain the demeanor of a prince.
Every move is made so that no one can find fault.
Because this is their opportunity, possibly the most important opportunity in this life, they must perform perfectly!
In fact, it was only this morning that they were notified at short notice that Li Xuan asked them to accompany them to attend the New Year State Banquet. This meant that they did not have much time to prepare in advance. Before attending the state banquet, their few hours
Time is used to calm down.
And because they, the older princes, all live alone in separate palaces, they don't consult their mothers and concubines in emergencies. They can only calm down and prepare in a hurry.
However, after all, they are all descendants of the royal family. Ever since they were sensible, they have been taught by countless people to do well and do better, so that they can have a chance to become the crown prince of a country.
The education that princes receive is also completely different from that of ordinary people. In addition to ordinary cultural courses, they also receive education from various princes. The education of these princes is more about teaching them how to become a superior person and a person.
ruler.
Take the emperor's eldest son Li Xuan as an example. He is fifteen years old and currently studying at the Royal School. For the education of the prince and his daughter, Li Xuan specially established the Royal Primary School in his early years. In the past few years, he established the Middle School and renamed it the Royal School.
This royal school is divided into two parts: a boys' school and a girls' school. It will provide a complete six-year primary education, three-year middle school education, and three-year preparatory education for the princes and princesses, as well as the selected children of nobles, officials, and outstanding civilians.
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In the royal school, Li Xuan received cultural education as well as general subjects such as etiquette and physical education. In addition, Li Xuan also specially established the Prince Education Institute in the palace, selecting various senior teachers to teach various special courses, including psychology.
Studies, administrative management, defense economics and other messy courses.
Sometimes Li Xuan would personally run over and teach them how to be a qualified leader.
Princes, no matter whether they can become princes or even emperors in the future, but since they were born, they are destined to never have an ordinary life. At the end of the day, they are still princes and proper superiors.
Although the prince who has received special education since childhood attended the New Year State Banquet for the first time, his performance was impeccable in terms of his treatment of others and his own etiquette. Even when he accepted the greetings from his courtiers, his face showed
The smiles are all textbook standard smiles.
Li Xuan looked at the four princes below him and nodded slightly in his heart!
They were born in the royal family. Although they could not enjoy the childhood and youth of normal people, as the saying goes, there are gains and losses. They lost the happiness that normal people should have, but they also gained a noble status that others could not get.
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According to Li Xuan's established plan, the two older princes should be crowned kings this year. After today's New Year's Eve, they will be sixteen years old starting tomorrow, and it is time to crown them kings.
Today, I wanted to let them see the world before they were crowned kings, and at the same time let the ministers know what kind of people the two new princes who were about to appear in the empire were like.
And now that a prince has been crowned king, the matter of establishing the crown prince should also be moved up the agenda. Li Xuan can't keep putting off this matter. It was fine when the princes were young, but now the princes are gradually
When you grow up, it's time to make a decision, lest the prince seize the throne and cause political turmoil.
After the New Year State Banquet, the 20th anniversary of Xuanping was officially ushered in!
On the first day of the first lunar month, Li Xuan officially announced to the world that the emperor's eldest son Li Huan was the king of Qi, and the emperor's second son was the king of Zhao!
It is an established policy that the prince becomes a prince when he reaches his sixteenth year. The courtiers did not react much to this. At this time, they are more concerned about whether Li Xuan will directly establish the heir apparent at this time.
And Li Xuan officially gave the answer to the ministers half a month later, on the 15th day of the first lunar month!
Li Xuan officially announced to the world that he would appoint the eldest son and the fourth son of the emperor, Li Hao, as the crown prince!
After more than ten years of hesitation between Li Xian and Li Di, Li Xuan finally chose Li Di!
However, when it came to the vassal dispute between King Qi and King Zhao, Li Xuan once again made a choice that no one expected!