The Marquise: I Earn My Own Worship

The first major event in the 20th year of Mingde was that the Minister of Justice Guo Lao submitted a letter of retirement.

"I am old and my strength is weakening. I have been on the throne for thirty-five years, and not a single day has I failed to think of Your Majesty. Unfortunately, time has passed quickly, and I am ill and unable to do anything about it...."

The Emperor of Chu read the lengthy retirement document of over a thousand words for a long time.

"Snapped"

The sound of Weiqing and the memorial was heard, and the Emperor of Chu showed no expression. At this time, Xiao Degui, who was standing next to him, could not guess what the emperor was thinking.

The Emperor of Chu was extremely moody and unpredictable.

The Emperor of Chu sat in the Tianlu Room. The sky outside was as dark as ink, and the candlelight inside the room shone on his face.

"My legs will soon be gone from me."

There was a sigh and loneliness in the Chu Emperor's voice.

The Great Chu had a clear decree that one could retire only when he was sixty years old.

Mr. Guo was already fifty-nine, almost sixty. According to court rules, if he submitted his resignation at this time, the Emperor of Chu would have already arranged for the next Minister of State when he turned sixty.

Seeing that the Emperor of Chu was immersed in his memories, Xiao Degui bowed and stood beside him, watching silently.

The next day, the Emperor of Chu rejected Mr. Guo's request in the court.

"Are you going to abandon me?"

With tears in his eyes, Mr. Guo looked at the emperor.

He didn't expect that the relationship between His Majesty and him was just like his relationship with His Majesty.

"If you do not abandon me in my old age, I will sacrifice my own body to share your worries."

Mr. Guo was still in good health. He understood the current situation of the Emperor of Chu and proposed to retire only because of the law, otherwise he would have been attacked and annihilated by some people.

As long as he is still here, those evildoers below will have to be wary of him, otherwise the court will be unstable and His Majesty will have an even harder time.

Now that the Crown Prince of Great Chu has not been appointed, the throne remains vacant. Your Majesty is already fifty-three years old, and the people at court are inevitably unstable.

Moreover, in the court, the new and old factions each held their own side and fought against each other.

Here we have to mention something that happened 40 or 50 years ago, when the previous emperor was still in power. The Chu state had established many meritorious officials and nobles, and as the nobility continued to gain power over the dynasties, they gradually gained control of the government.

During the reign of Taizu, there was a subtle intention to attack the nobles and support the poor.

Until the late emperor ascended the throne, he inherited Taizu's will and devoted himself to suppressing the huge power of the nobles.

Countless nobles who committed crimes were suppressed and purged in various ways. The Dongyang Taishu clan, which was the most powerful at the time, was exiled under the suppression of the previous emperor.

Since the decline of the Taishu clan, these nobles in the capital have gradually declined one by one.

Mr. Guo still remembers that when he was a child, there were countless children from noble families in the capital, unlike now, when the title of earl is only held by the surviving Duan and Luo families.

The late emperor ascended the throne at the age of thirty and ruled for forty-one years. At that time, the princes were vying for power, and the late emperor's most favored and most likely successor to the throne of Great Chu, his youngest son, died in a rebellion.

The late emperor was already 67 years old at that time. Upon hearing the news, he vomited blood and reluctantly posthumously named his 13th son as Prince Huiwen.

The late emperor was in unbearable grief all day long, and made the then King Ping the crown prince, who is now Your Majesty.

However, four years later, the previous emperor passed away and the current Emperor of Chu succeeded to the throne.

Perhaps it was because the previous emperor was too cruel and ruthless, the nobles of the Great Chu declined, and the common people rose. By the time the Emperor of Chu succeeded to the throne, two-thirds of the court was controlled by people from common families.

This caused the situation of that year to reappear, and the court was once again unbalanced.

The King of Chu inherited the teachings of the previous emperor and has been constantly maintaining the balance between the nobles and the poor over the years, repairing the mistakes of the previous emperor.

However, the poor now hold most of the power in the court and continue to support people from poor families to rise to power. The original nobles, due to external suppression and their own corruption, are unable to resist the impact of the poor.

Once any force breaks through the barriers, it will become uncontrollable.

The previous emperor supported the poor in order to suppress the power of the nobles, and ultimately to maintain the ruling royal power.

The previous emperor's mistake was that he gave too much power to the poor, which eventually destroyed himself and the most suitable candidate for the next emperor was sacrificed in this struggle.

It is regrettable that the nobles suppressed by the previous emperor support this wise prince, while the poor families who were pushed to the top by him are blinded by interests because of the power struggle.

The poor family he personally supported ended up killing his beloved son.

Mr. Guo thought of Prince Huiwen, and even though he was the most loyal supporter of His Majesty, he couldn't help but sigh with regret.

Even His Majesty has missed him countless times.

Gentle, elegant, kind, benevolent, filial and sensible.

If it weren't for the rebellion, perhaps...

There are not so many ifs in the world. In fact, Prince Huiwen is dead, and some of the aristocratic forces that followed him have also fallen into silence.

Among them, the old marquis of Duan Bo Mansion was one of them. What happened back then was so painful that it could not be mentioned in the history of the Great Chu.

Most of the amazing and talented men of that generation did not stand on the stage of history.

As time goes by, it is gradually forgotten by the world.

The pain of the King of Chu lies in the balance of the court. He has been on the throne for twenty years, and his methods are much milder than those of the previous emperor.

The previous emperor's methods of suppressing the nobles were too radical, and changes in the political situation cannot be achieved overnight.

The poor families today are just like the nobles of the past, one rises while the other falls, this is an eternal truth.

The King of Chu saw clearly that only a balance between the two would be beneficial to the governance of the country.

No, it would be more appropriate to call them the new school.

The new faction now understands that the Emperor of Chu is more lenient towards the old faction. Even if there is no obvious promotion or support, it can be seen from his attitude.

The only way to break this stagnant atmosphere is to place your bets on the next emperor.

The situation in the court was turbulent. Due to the last test, various forces were lying low.

At the same time, Song Shengfu was looking up historical facts and saw the death of Prince Huiwen.

"Lord Huiwen drank the wine on the emperor's behalf and died of the poison. The emperor was deeply saddened and vomited blood continuously. He died four years later."

Prince Huiwen? Who?

Song Shengfu was a little confused. She was not her original self, and it took her a long time to recall a person's name when she saw it.

However, I only have a vague impression in my memory, as if it was obscured by something.

But she couldn't ask anyone about this, after all, Prince Huiwen died twenty or thirty years ago.

To be exact, it was twenty-five years ago, twenty-five years ago...

As expected, Duan Chongming must be related to this matter. Song Shengfu put down the book in her hand.

She tried hard to recall her original memories, but the events of twenty-five years ago seemed to be covered by a veil and she could not remember them at all.

What a piece of crap, coming here to die at this time.

If Song Shengfu couldn't remember, she simply stopped thinking about it. She had other ways.

The reason why she thought of these things was because Song Shengfu always felt that there was something wrong with the decline of Duan Bo's Mansion in her previous life.

The rise and fall of a family is normal. If no one has committed a serious crime, it is rare for a family to end up losing all its property like the Duan Bo family.

She was afraid that if someone was deliberately making trouble, just because she was able to catch Duan Bofu in her previous life, it didn't mean that he would let them go in this life.

Rather than passively facing it, Song Shengfu prefers to investigate the truth and take the initiative.

But this stubborn brain doesn't help at the critical moment!