At the tender age of eight, he was hastily dragged out and made emperor!

After Li Zhong left, the hall returned to calm. Chu Ling rested his hands behind his head, leaning against the cushion of the throne, his right leg swinging back and forth.

His youthful face was expressionless, but his eyes sparkled.

Chu Ling was thinking about something.

Li Zhong recounted that when Emperor Taizu was thirty years old, he led his army from Hexi to aid Liangcheng, decisively defeated the Li family of Guanzhong, and married his sworn sister as his principal wife. This was only the first half of Emperor Taizu's life, but Li Zhong did not continue the story. Chu Ling gleaned several layers of meaning from this.

When Emperor Taizu rushed to the aid of Liangcheng, he must have gained something that led to a major turning point for his troops; otherwise, Li Zhong would not have deliberately stopped there.

The father-son relationship between Emperor Taizu and Emperor Taizong indirectly reflects the husband-wife relationship between Emperor Taizu and Empress Dowager Cixi. Therefore, Empress Dowager Cixi must have done something after that rescue of Liangcheng!

The death of the late Emperor was definitely not simple!

Thinking of this, Chu Ling suddenly stood up, jumped down from the throne, and walked quickly to the wooden couch next to him. A chessboard and two boxes of chess pieces came into view.

Chu Ling lifted his robe and sat down, grabbed a handful of white chess pieces, and frowned as he stared at the chessboard in front of him.

Duke Baoguo, Zongchuan, was the Grand Marshal and General of the Cavalry during the Yu Dynasty.

Anguo Gong Changli was the Grand Marshal and General of Chariots and Cavalry of the Yu Dynasty.

These two were among the earliest to follow the founding emperor, and were the only two of the thirteen to live to see the founding of the Yu Dynasty. Chu Ling was indeed not valued, but the problem was that these two went to the ancestral worship ceremony every year. From the time Chu Ling could remember, he was very puzzled as to why two outsiders would participate in the royal ancestral worship ceremony.

This is a sacrifice to the ancestors of the Chu family.

One of them is surnamed Zong, and the other is surnamed Chang. What kind of ancestor are they worshipping?

It wasn't until Chu Ling saw the two men weeping in front of the portrait of Emperor Taizu at the edge of the crowd, with Emperor Taizong supporting them with red eyes, that Chu Ling understood everything.

Chu Ling was four years old that year, and that's when she started to truly remember things.

That year, Emperor Taizong had been on the throne for four years.

That year, Zongchuan and Changli had been in the prefecture for four years.

In the year that Emperor Taizu Gao died, Chu Ling was born. Zong Chuan and Chang Li submitted a memorial requesting to retire, but Emperor Taizong disagreed. The two submitted memorials several times requesting to resign. In the end, Emperor Taizong allowed them to recuperate in their residences, but they were not allowed to relinquish their military posts. No one in the court raised any objections.

The two have been recuperating in the mansion for eight years now. Apart from leaving the mansion for the annual royal ancestral worship ceremony, they never leave the mansion at other times.

However, when the late Emperor passed away, a situation arose in the Yu Palace. Among the initial group of people who entered the palace, there were not two of them. It is unknown who invited the two to the palace in the end.

Who proposed it?

Who went to invite them?

Chu Ling stared at the two white pieces on the chessboard, his heart filled with more doubts. He had rarely seen the deceased emperor, but he had seen him from afar every time he participated in ancestral worship ceremonies.

Before ascending the throne, the late Emperor was in good health, tall, and handsome. He liked to carry a knife, which was a gift from the founding emperor. However, Chu Ling at that time dared not look at the Crown Prince too much, because the Crown Prince did not like to smile, and he rarely saw the Crown Prince smile, according to some discussions.

This man, who had been on the throne for less than a year and had just changed the reign title to Yongchang, such an auspicious reign title, died mysteriously.

So was it an assassination attempt?

Chu Ling placed another white piece.

Chu Ling knew absolutely nothing about the inner court at the moment. What exactly happened during those seemingly short but actually long seven days, from the death of the late emperor to the selection of the successor, was something Chu Ling desperately wanted to know, but he had no way of obtaining the information.

The only thing Chu Ling could extend was to deduce something useful by combining Li Zhong's account of the founding emperor's deeds with some of his own memories.

In a word.

After the passing of the late emperor, everyone who appeared in the inner court was extraordinary!

Especially the roles played by Empress Dowager Cixi Kangshou, Empress Dowager Shenglie Cishou, and the Empress, and who proposed that he become the successor emperor, are also very important.

A fog of mystery—this is Chu Ling's current predicament.

Chu Ling had read some novels in his previous life, some of which described how becoming an emperor meant becoming a tyrant, wielding military power, and controlling finances... It all sounded very plausible, but the question was, how could one achieve that?

Yes, you have the advantage of being a prophet.

But the ancients weren't fools either.

Right now, Chu Ling has the advantage of foresight but can't use it at all. This has little to do with coming to the Yu Dynasty. What matters is that he's been surrounded and killed.

Be a tyrant.

Be a benevolent ruler.

To be a foolish ruler.

Be a wise ruler.

These role assignments are not a matter of whether Chu Ling wants them or not, but rather who is planning to assign them to these roles.

The initiative was not in Chu Ling's hands at all; he didn't even know who was going to be positioned or what role they were going to play.

"We must stay calm at this time."

Looking at the chessboard in front of him, with more and more white pieces placed there, Chu Ling felt an unknown threat. "The risks are unknown, the threats are unknown, the hidden dangers are unknown, the enemy and ally are unknown. Under all these unknowns, knowing what Li Zhong and Chu Ling will do, what thoughts they will have, is completely unpredictable."

"The current situation is a hundred times, a thousand times more difficult than unraveling a mystery. If we are not careful, the Yu Dynasty may not care. Even if there is another emperor or a deposed emperor, the Yu Dynasty can still turn around without us. But the result is too cruel to me."

Chu Ling was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die without knowing why.

It is one's own destiny, yet one cannot control it; this is unbearable for any man with a temper.

So Li Zhong really went to the Third Empress's place?

Thinking about all this, Chu Ling pictured Li Zhong. In the past, Chu Ling didn't have a deep impression of Li Zhong, only feeling that he was a breakthrough point for him to break out of the predicament.

But tonight, in this main hall, Li Zhong told Chu Ling about the deeds of Emperor Taizu. Chu Ling was deeply impressed by this person, and Chu Ling could sense that Li Zhong was intentionally telling him something.

So, are you loyal or treacherous?

Or are you trying to take advantage of the situation?

Chu Ling held the last white piece, staring intently at it. His youthful face revealed a solemn expression, an expression unbecoming of his age.

Chu Ling has already made his move. Now all we can do is wait patiently and see what ripples his actions will create and who will react.

Patience is essential right now.

If Chu Ling doesn't even have a clear idea of ​​what to do, he doesn't know what tensions he might be triggering.

If this leads to him being trapped in a desperate situation, Chu Ling will have nowhere to turn for help. After all, Chu Ling's very life is uncertain. There is no one around Daxing Palace whom Chu Ling knows, let alone anyone he trusts. If an assassination attempt or something else were to occur, could eight-year-old Chu Ling survive? His mental age may be mature, but it is ultimately no match for his actual age!

If Chu Ling were any older, he wouldn't be in such a passive position now!