Professional Ethics of a Concubine

Great Zhao.

The messenger was very helpful. Half a month later, the emperor received a reply from the empress.

After seeing the empress's reply, the emperor fell silent again. After a long while, he said to the Grand Chancellor,

"Call the Crown Prince, Prince Su, Prince Duan, Ling Yue, and Prime Minister Fang over here. Call Grand Tutor Ye as well."

The chief steward agreed and went out to tell the young eunuchs to run errands and notify them to come and see the emperor.

Ye Qingzhi was in the East Palace, the closest place. She took her time to change her clothes and walked slowly all the way to the imperial study. She was still the first to arrive.

This kind of feeling of being the first person to arrive at a meeting with many people and having to face the big boss alone... It's really sour!

But we have to say that everything has two sides.

If you seize the opportunity at this time, show off your abilities in front of the big boss and leave a good impression on him, this embarrassing situation can also be transformed into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for upward networking.

"Greetings, Your Majesty." Ye Qingzhi greeted the emperor politely.

"Master Ye, please stand up quickly." The emperor smiled at her gently, gave her a seat and asked her to sit down and talk.

Ye Qingzhi thanked the emperor again, then stood up and sat down dignifiedly, with a smile on her face, and took the initiative to ask the emperor,

"I wonder what the emperor is summoning me for. Can I know in advance? That way, I can make some preparations before His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and his men arrive."

The emperor also thought that since he was free anyway, he might as well have a chat with Tutor Ye first. She always had a lot of brilliant ideas, which might give him some inspiration.

So, the emperor talked about the second princess and asked Ye Qingzhi directly, "Master Ye, do you think we should demote the second princess to a commoner?"

Upon hearing this, Ye Qingzhi looked at the emperor with some surprise and expressed admiration from the bottom of her heart.

She thought the prince could do such a thing, but she didn't expect the emperor to think so.

Obviously, the emperor was not thinking of abandoning the disappointing child to give himself some peace because he was angry or emotionally broken.

He made this choice after careful consideration, and he was also seriously considering whether this practice could be turned into a system and continued.

After thinking for a moment, Ye Qingzhi did not directly say yes or no, but told him about the issue of supporting relatives of the Ming Dynasty in history that she had learned.

Starting from another perspective, she told the emperor how the royal family, after more than ten generations of reproduction, became huge termites that slowly devoured an entire dynasty.

In real history, by the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the demand for rice as an official salary for the royal family even exceeded the total land tax revenue in the country.

By the end of the Ming Dynasty, the number of clan members had reached millions. It really took the whole country's strength to support the Zhu royal family.

You have to know that the lower class people don't have the money to marry three wives and four concubines. They are lucky to have one wife. They can't afford to raise so many children, let alone have a large family.

But nobles can have three wives and four concubines, and each person can have more than a dozen children. If children have children, the population can grow exponentially.

Of course, the demise and decline of the Ming Dynasty in real history was not just a matter of supporting the royal family, but this was indeed one of the important factors leading to the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

After listening to Ye Qingzhi's story, the emperor was so shocked that he was speechless for a long time, because no one had ever done such a calculation for him.

He had never imagined that the royal family could expand in this way.

Not only do these people not have to pay taxes and cannot contribute tax revenue to the country, they also have to receive a fixed amount of silver and rice, have privileges, and can enjoy themselves.

The emperor recalled Ye Qingzhi's words, "sons give birth to grandchildren, grandchildren give birth to sons, and grandchildren have endless descendants..." When he heard this sentence before, he thought it was a kind of power of reproduction, a kind of inheritance and development.

But now, in this context, he couldn't help but shudder.

"Master Ye told this story very well, very well." The emperor came back to his senses and asked Ye Qingzhi, "Have you told this story to the prince?"

"No." Ye Qingzhi shook her head.

"Write it down and show it to the prince. I want a copy too." The emperor said again.

Ye Qingzhi agreed with a smile.

At this time, the prince also hurried back and happened to hear the conversation between the two outside. After entering and greeting each other, the prince smiled and asked,

"What did Father say just now? What do you need me to see?"

"Teacher Ye just told me a story about the support of a royal relative. I was deeply inspired and thought it was a very good story."

The Emperor said to his prince in a serious tone,

"Prince, after you read this story, please write me a memorial and tell me what you think."

Xie Jin, ...

Ye Qingzhi couldn't help but want to laugh.

Why did the emperor assign homework and even asked the prince to hand in his reading notes?

Xie Jin couldn't help but turn his head to look at Ye Qingzhi, blinking with a puzzled look in his eyes:

Qingqing, what kind of chicken soup have you given to father that made him so obsessed that it is not enough for him to drink it himself, and he has to recommend it to him and write a good review after he drinks it.

Ye Qingzhi blinked innocently, smiled at him, and explained briefly,

"The Emperor is considering whether to demote the Second Princess to a commoner, so that she can return to her original intention and stop bullying others by relying on her status as a princess."

Upon hearing this, the prince looked at his father in surprise. He also did not expect that his father's heart could be so hard.

"Prince, do you agree with this?" the emperor asked him.

"Your Majesty, I agree with this." Xie Jin said immediately, "If I wasn't afraid that Your Majesty would be reluctant to severely punish the Second Princess, I would have thought of making this suggestion."

Upon hearing this, the emperor nodded again, the balance in his heart had completely tilted.

After a while, Prince Su, Ling Yue, Prime Minister Fang, and Prince Duan also arrived, and the emperor asked them to express their opinions on the matter.

Prince Su naturally agreed. He was a military general and hated descendants who just ate and waited for death, so he wanted to whip them.

Ling Yue was shocked when she heard this, but she did not hesitate to agree, because the Second Princess's previous noble remarks and her face were really disgusting, and she wanted her to be baptized again.

After hearing the punishment for the second princess and thinking about his own previous behavior, Prince Duan couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

Of course, I was only a little bit panicked, but I was mostly grateful!

When he was imprisoned in the ancestral hall to repent, his father also said that he would demote him to a commoner.

If it weren't for the Crown Prince and Tutor Ye who pointed out the bright future for him, his ending would have been the same as the Second Princess', and he would have been demoted to a commoner.

It’s scary just thinking about it, it’s so tragic!

It was also because of this shock that he changed his ways and worked hard to improve himself so that he could be an excellent child in the eyes of his father and the crown prince.

Therefore, this punishment is really a punishment that will keep the second princess quiet and will definitely make her behave herself.

Well, I'm also afraid...

"Father, the Second Princess did something wrong and her thinking is problematic. Being demoted to a commoner is a lesson she deserves. I'm afraid that the gap is too big and the Second Princess can't bear it anymore and commits suicide..."

Prince Duan spoke out some of his worries.

“If the Second Princess dies because of this, it will definitely upset my father, so it would be better to let her live in the Imperial Mausoleum for a year.

At the imperial mausoleum, she was asked to read the biography of her grandfather every day, learn from him, and not forget her ancestral teachings.

If she still cannot change her mind after coming back a year later, it won’t be too late to demote her to a commoner again.”

Everyone knows how hard life is at the imperial mausoleum. Being demoted to guard the imperial mausoleum is definitely not an easy life.

But even if it's not easy, she is still a princess, and this also gives her a chance to repent.

Upon hearing this, the emperor nodded, thinking that Prince Duan's suggestion was very reasonable.

That was his daughter, and the purpose of punishing her was to educate her, not to force her to death.

What she did was not punishable by death.

However, Prime Minister Fang also put forward his opinions.

He believed that directly demoting the second princess to a commoner would be more shocking and would reflect the emperor's majesty and fairness, as well as his determination to rectify the royal family and officialdom.

As I said before, the fact that the emperor can treat the second princess so harshly means that he will absolutely not allow major corruption to occur in the officialdom, and will not allow bad practices to prevail.

Dealing with the second princess was not only to correct the bad practices within the royal family, but also to purge the unhealthy trends in officialdom and give officials a warning.

As for preventing the second princess from committing suicide, there are many ways. One is to give her hope of restoring her status, and the other is to send someone to monitor her at all times and not give her the opportunity to commit suicide.

People will not give up their lives easily when they have hope of turning the situation around.

All in all, Prime Minister Fang thought it would be better to demote the second princess to a commoner.

Ye Qingzhi couldn't help but glance at Prime Minister Fang, wondering how much of his suggestion was motivated by personal vengeance.

The Second Princess is Ling Yue's mortal enemy and has been bullying Ling Yue. Prime Minister Fang cannot be unaware of this, so...tsk tsk, she is so scheming.

After listening to what Prime Minister Fang said, the emperor felt that what he said made sense.

In the end, after weighing many considerations, the emperor decided to demote the second princess to a commoner.

As soon as the decree was announced, the whole court was shocked.

But if you think about it again, it is understandable that the emperor was almost poisoned during the Lantern Festival banquet because of the second princess's negligence.

However, the ruthlessness revealed in the emperor's action still made the officials nervous, and they became cautious in the short term.

When the second princess learned that she was demoted to a commoner, she was shocked and could not accept it. She almost went crazy.

"Why, wuwuwu... Why... Father, why are you so cruel and heartless... The poisonous dumplings must have been framed by the crown prince... Why are you punishing myself..."

The second princess cried and shouted, but no one paid any attention to her.

The second princess did think about hanging herself to end her life, but Ling Yue went to see her specially and with a few simple words she gave up the idea of ​​suicide.

"Want to hang yourself? Then hurry up. If you die, I will come and collect your body for the sake of our sisterhood.

Because when your husband heard that you were demoted to a commoner, he asked your father for a divorce, and he will no longer collect your body.

Anyway, you are not satisfied with your husband, and you are not satisfied with the two children you gave birth to, so I will arrange a ghost marriage for you.

You think you are very noble now, so I have to find a noble person who is worthy of you.

Make your own choice before you die. We in the Great Zhao now advocate giving women the right to choose in marriage, and I have to respect your choice.

What do you think of choosing the prince of the previous dynasty? The prince of the previous dynasty has royal bloodline for hundreds of years, while our family has been a royal family for less than 50 years.

By comparison, the former prince was very noble, and he fits your requirements. I remember that his imperial tomb had not been dug out either, so it just so happens..."

The second princess,...

roll roll roll!

She is not dead!

She doesn't want to be treated like this after she dies!

Spare her...