"Perhaps there is something delayed." The queen said, "Why don't I ask someone to take a look?"
Emperor Qingming nodded and frowned slightly: "This child is still so confused..."
His aptitude and temperament may indeed be innate. He devoted all his efforts to cultivating and guiding his only son. However, he was enlightened at the age of three and is now ten years old. Let alone his political views, he even took a test on one of his poems yesterday.
Even the very simple poems are difficult to answer...
However, compared to his qualifications, what is more worrying is his frail body.
"Perhaps you are really delaying." The queen seemed not to want him to worry too much. She picked up a glass of wine and said with a smile: "I pay tribute to your majesty."
Emperor Qingming's eyes softened slightly and he took the wine glass.
However, as soon as he put down the half-empty wine glass, he saw a palace servant rushing into the palace in panic.
The palace man knelt down with a plop, his face turned earth-colored, and his voice trembled: "Your Majesty... Your Majesty!"
"Why are you so panicked?" Emperor Qingming's face turned slightly cold.
The officials sitting on both sides also put away the smiles on their faces and looked at the eunuch kneeling on the ground.
This is the Queen's birthday banquet, and envoys from other countries are present. Such a lack of etiquette in front of the palace will bring disgrace to Daqing.
I just don’t know why?
However, under the gaze of many eyes, the eunuch not only failed to calm down, cold sweat hit the ground along his cheeks, but he hesitated when he spoke hastily: "Your Majesty, it is His Highness the Crown Prince... Your Highness, he..."
Emperor Qingming's eyes changed slightly, and his voice was filled with coercion: "Tell me clearly, what happened to the prince——"
The palace man did not dare to hesitate any longer and hit his head heavily on the gold brick: "...His Royal Highness fell into the Fuyun Pond...drown and fell into unconsciousness!"
"What!"
Emperor Qingming's expression changed drastically and he stood up immediately.
The queen was also trembling slightly.
In just a short moment, the atmosphere in the hall was turned upside down. The musicians and dancers knelt down on one side with bated breath. All the officials looked shocked. There were some women at the table who had not heard clearly and secretly asked the people around them with their eyes.
Emperor Qingming strode down the jade steps, followed closely by the queen with a solemn expression.
As soon as the emperor and empress left, chaos broke out in the palace.
"What's wrong? This is..."
"How could the prince drown?"
At the Queen's birthday banquet, such a big incident happened...!
Xia Tingzhen, Xu Qiwei and other important officials left the banquet at the head of the table. The other officials either followed closely or chose to stay in the palace and wait for the news.
Among the female relatives, very few followed.
"Mom, let me go take a look." Xu Mingyi whispered to Cui.
Mrs. Cui subconsciously wanted to object. The prince was the crown prince, and it was related to important matters of the country. It was understandable for officials to follow the past, and it was better for the female family members to stay away from home——
But before she could say anything, she saw that the girl had already picked up her skirt and left the table quickly!
"Zhao Zhao——"
Mrs. Cui quickly called out, but before this one could stop, Cui Yunwei ran away too!
It was as if I hadn't had time to close the fence, and I was watching the sheep running out one by one. The feeling of powerlessness filled my heart.
Cui and Wen looked at each other and had no choice but to chase after them.
Seeing this scene, the other female family members were surprised for a moment and followed suit - who wouldn't want to gather around to see such a thing? All the princes and wives in the Zhenguo Duke's mansion were there, so it wouldn't be too much for them to go and see it together, right?
?
Fuyun Pond is located in the garden behind Jiaotai Hall. The group of people hurriedly arrived there quickly.
Several imperial doctors have rushed over and are currently surrounding the rescued prince trying to save him.
"There is a lot of water in my belly!"
"...Hurry and get a bench and quilt and pillow from the palace! Hurry!"
"Acupuncture first..."
This place is close to the Tai Palace, and the necessary items were quickly fetched by the eunuchs.
Xu Mingyi looked in the crowd at the child who was being carried on a bench with a soft quilt and a soft pillow, and unconsciously clenched the fingers in his sleeves slightly.
In the previous life, the prince drowned today.
This was not an accident that happened by chance, but someone deliberately harmed it.
The murderer was Crown Prince Jing who came to Beijing to celebrate the Queen’s birthday——
Prince Jing was sentenced to death for this. Prince Jing, who was far away in his fiefdom of Hanzhou, demoted him to a commoner because his majesty still cared about brotherhood.
King Jing, who lost his son and the throne, suffered from madness from then on. It is said that one day he ran onto the street with his hair disheveled and shouted in public that the murder of the prince a year ago was instigated by the Duke of Zhen——
What a madman said, and it came from Hanzhou thousands of miles away, how can one know whether it is true or false, and how can it be counted as evidence?
It is said that His Majesty does not believe it at all.
Unable to bear it, the Emperor had no other choice but to investigate the matter one after another, demanding a thorough investigation of Duke Zhen.
As a result of this investigation, evidence was found that the Zhenguo government had conspired with King Jing.
Even more than that, there is also the heinous crime of having close contacts with enemy countries and leaking Daqing's secrets——
Under the overwhelming evidence, the entire Zhenguo Palace was raided and beheaded.
During those years in Yangzhou, she always wondered whether there was a certain connection between the incident in the Zhenguo Palace and the murder of the prince by Prince Jing and his son?
She had never had an answer to this question before, but since she learned that her grandfather had the idea of handing over military power, she roughly concluded that there should be no connection.
Because even if the prince had not drowned, the Zhenguo Palace, which had handed over military power, was still a lamb to be slaughtered - they had not participated in the murder of the prince, and they also had the guilt of liaison with the enemy waiting for them at the Zhenguo Palace.
It's just that the people behind it are very thoughtful and are very good at using everything they can in order to make things seem more logical. To put it bluntly, the charge of murdering the prince was probably just carried out by the Zhenguo Palace at that time.
Therefore, in the past few days, when weighing whether to intervene in this matter, she preferred the latter.
She entered the palace today just to get a closer understanding of the truth about this matter.
As for preventing the prince from being killed, she didn't think about it——
However, even if she managed to save the prince from death this time, she could not guarantee what would happen after tonight.
Because no matter who is behind the scenes, since he has murderous intentions for the prince, if someone secretly disrupts the plan this time, rather than the plot being exposed and unable to strike again, then the other party will definitely make another move.
And this was in the palace, where it was extremely inconvenient for her as a daughter of a foreign minister to act, and even her every move would be observed. She could not be sure whether the person who wanted to harm the prince was the prince, and if she rashly intervened in the matter, she would not be safe.
Let alone keeping the crown prince, it is very likely that it will cause immeasurable trouble to oneself.
Reason told her that she should not take such a risk for something that had no direct interest in the Zhenguo Government at the moment.
She did choose to listen to reason.
For her, there was nothing difficult to decide.
But this time, she saw the child with her own eyes, lying there without knowing whether he was alive or dead. A child about the same size as Mingshi, at least three-quarters of an hour ago, told her with bright eyes that he admired General Xu very much -
