The swansong of the swansong

Chapter 43 Please accept the order from the fifteenth master
After being beaten, Yinyou secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Hey, he finally cleared his relationship with the prince.

In his later years, Kangxi was most afraid of the Crown Prince wanting to emulate Li Shimin, and secondly, the Eighth Prince's party being too powerful to be controlled.

When it comes to choosing sides in government, there is often no best option, and one can only choose the lesser of two evils.

Is there any need to ask which is more important: temporarily angering Kangxi or becoming a member of Kangxi's party, whom he regards as the crown prince?
"Khan Ama, please calm down. My fifteenth brother is still a child. He doesn't know anything. This is all my fault..."

Just then, the fourth brother's anxious call came from outside the door. He obviously heard something wrong and wanted to rush in to save Yinyou.

"Stop the Fourth Prince. Anyone who dares to let him in will be beaten to death!" Kangxi shouted at the Fourth Prince, not wanting him to come in and interfere.

Kangxi was not the cruel fourth son. It is absolutely true that he did not kill his son.

"The prince told me that he plans to marry his wife's younger sister to you. What do you think?" Kangxi took a few deep breaths and asked Yinyou suddenly.

Yinyou suddenly realized that this was the root of the problem!
"My dear Khan, I have never had such a fantasy." Yinyu kowtowed heavily, and suddenly raised his head so that Kangxi could see his expression clearly. "My dear Khan, I am very brave and respectfully ask you to choose the most beautiful princess from the lower five banners of the Manchus and give her to me as my legitimate wife."

What does it mean to express your feelings? This is it!

Just because Yinyu said he had no ambition and did not want to curry favor with the crown prince, it did not mean that Kangxi would believe him.

The Crown Princess's family belonged to the Plain White Banner Han Army, which was definitely one of the upper three banners.

However, Yinyou begged Kangxi to arrange a marriage for him with a Manchu princess from the lower five banners, which was tantamount to directly rejecting the prince's attempt to win him over.

Yinyou had no support from his mother's family, and his refusal of the prince's marriage proposal was tantamount to telling Kangxi clearly that he really just wanted to be a rich and idle prince.

"Hmph, stop dreaming. I will give you the ugliest one." As soon as Kangxi's cruel words came out, Yinyou felt relieved and agreed.

As the saying goes, marry a virtuous wife and take a concubine who is beautiful.

The so-called virtue mainly means that the wife’s family has status and influence in the court.

However, most of the unmarried Manchu princesses waiting to be selected were ugly because their genes had not yet been completely modified, and beautiful ones were extremely rare.

Marrying an ugly wife was actually the political price Yinyou had to pay.

Anyway, nowadays is an absolute patriarchal society. As long as Yinyou is willing, he can have as many concubines as he wants.

Although Yinyou's true words seemed to be disrespectful to his king and father, and extremely unfilial.

However, it sounded particularly fresh to Kangxi's ears.

As the saying goes, a man without desires is strong.

Khan Ama, you don't favor me, and I don't ask anything of you. We can live in peace with each other. Isn't that good?

Except for Yinyou, among Kangxi's many sons, no one dared to tell the truth because everyone had their own wishes.

As an emperor, Kangxi's mentality is very different from that of ordinary parents.

Kangxi had to guard against his son killing him and usurping the throne, while also worrying about the joy of father-son family life. After a long time, Kangxi must have had mental problems.

"Are you blaming me for not favoring you?" Kangxi took a few deep breaths and his emotions calmed down a little.

Yinyou knew that he couldn't push Kangxi into a corner, otherwise, if he was really imprisoned, he would be asking for trouble.

"My dear Khan, thunder and rain are all blessings from heaven. There are no parents who are not right in the world. I am honored to be a prince. I have been living a life of luxury since I was a child. I have a high status and I am very satisfied. I would never dare to blame you, my father."

When it comes to stance, you must never make mistakes!

Yinyou knelt upright and looked directly into Kangxi's eyes boldly, deliberately letting Kangxi see his sincerity.

Kangxi looked at Yinyou carefully, his eyes extremely cold.

No one knew how long it had been, but Kangxi suddenly walked out of the house without any warning.

At this point, Yinyou had no idea what Kangxi meant.

Kangxi walked to the front door of the Ministry of Revenue without stopping, but ordered: "Go and pick it up."

The fourth brother, who was seeing Kangxi off, was a little confused.

However, Liang Jiugong, who was following beside him, bent down and whispered, understandingly: "Yeah."

When Liang Jiugong hurried out with the summary of Yinyu's records and all the files, Kangxi's carriage had already left the alley. The fourth brother was worried that Yinyu might get into trouble, so he stopped Liang Jiugong, bent down for the first time, and asked him with a smile: "Liang, the chief steward..."

Unexpectedly, Liang Jiugong said first: "Fourth Master, there are some things you can't ask. I don't know anything."

There was no way. Lao Si and Liang Jiugong were not close friends in private, so Liang Jiugong naturally would not reveal the inside story.

"Fourth Master, His Majesty is still waiting for your reply. I will take my leave now." Liang Jiugong was worried that the fourth master would ask more questions, so he rode away without looking back.

Looking at Liang Jiugong's receding back, the fourth brother was filled with hatred but had no choice but to go back to Yinyou to find out the truth.

After Liang Jiugong caught up with Kangxi's carriage, he had some guesses in his mind, so he deliberately did not report back immediately and followed behind the carriage silently.

"Why hasn't Liang Jiugong come back yet?"

Unexpectedly, within half a cup of tea, Kangxi's voice of questioning was heard from the carriage.

Liang Jiugong's heart trembled suddenly, and he hurriedly urged his horse forward, and said through the curtain in an extremely flattering tone: "Your Majesty, I ran too fast and fell down..."

Before Liang Jiugong could finish his lie, Kangxi lifted the curtain and said two words: "Bring it here."

"Yes." Liang Jiugong quickly handed the summary and files written by Yinyou to Kangxi with both hands.

After Kangxi took the files and the excerpts, he immediately lowered the curtains and never showed up again.

Soon after returning to the Qianqing Palace, Kangxi walked to the West Warm Pavilion and casually ordered, "Call Zhang Tingyu."

"Yes." Liang Jiugong responded, but he knew better than anyone that in recent years, among those in the Southern Study, Zhang Tingyu was the one who drafted the most imperial edicts.

After Zhang Tingyu knelt down to pay his respects, Kangxi said, "Minister Heng, draft an edict..."

With Zhang Tingyu's strong writing skills, he could easily write down such a trivial matter without any difficulty.

Kangxi read the draft edict and, as usual, did not change a single word. He directly ordered Liang Jiugong to take the seal to the Seal Room in the Jiaotai Palace.

On the way to Jiaotai Palace, Liang Jiugong had been thinking about one thing. His Majesty gave the prince another chance to mend his ways.

After the fourth brother sent Kangxi away, he hurried to find Yinyou.

"Fifteenth brother, Khan Ama is very angry!" The fourth brother reminded Yinyu worriedly, "In my opinion, you must go to the palace immediately and apologize to Khan Ama."

Yinyou smiled slightly and said, "Fourth brother, I have no intention of currying favor with the prince..." He explained the reason why Kangxi was angry in detail.

In the top power circle, other trivial matters do not need to be explained.

However, when it comes to the issue of taking sides, Yinyou must make it clear in person to avoid arousing the suspicion of the Fourth Prince.

The fourth brother has gotten used to pretending to have a cold face, and he looks like the King of Hell wherever he goes.

"Oh, oh, you, you..." However, he sighed several times in succession. On the surface, he felt sorry for Yinyou, but in fact, he must have felt something in his heart.

Yinyou took the initiative to give up the prince's solicitation and would rather offend Kangxi in person than not follow the fourth brother. What kind of brotherly love is this?

At dinner, the fourth brother prepared eight dishes and a soup for the first time, and added cured pig's face and blanched prawns, which were all Yinyou's favorite dishes.

"Fifteenth brother, would you please reconsider this?" The fourth brother was a guy who looked cold on the outside but was actually warm-hearted. He hesitated again and again, but in the end, he was reluctant to see Yinyou being severely punished.

"Fourth brother, please stop persuading me. I can't possibly go to the Qianqing Palace to apologize!" Yinyu said this, but he was thinking in his heart, if he didn't take a gamble, how could he possibly stand up to Kangxi and win back his power and title?

So far, except for Yinyou, the other princes were afraid of angering Kangxi and rushed to flatter him.

But Yinyou was a freak. He dared to say in front of Kangxi, "If you don't love me, forget it!"
Apart from Kangxi, if Yongzheng or Qianlong were in power, the prince who dared to be so arrogant would have been killed long ago.

"Come on, good brother, let's go!" The fourth brother closed his eyes and drank the wine in the cup in one gulp.

Yinyou knew that the fourth son did not like drinking and had a low alcohol tolerance, so what he did was already an exception.

"Fourth brother, I know you are doing this for my own good, but I would rather not be an assistant prince than have my father-in-law misunderstand me as clinging to the prince."

Since the fourth brother had real feelings for her, Yinyou no longer hid his feelings and simply expressed them directly.

"Well, I think you should..." The fourth brother wanted to persuade him again, but suddenly Su Peisheng's loud report came from outside the house, "My lord, the chief steward Liang is here in person, please ask the fifteenth master to go out and receive the order."

(End of this chapter)