Take the warehouse back to the end of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 709
"Your Majesty, have you forgotten what you promised me?" Liu Wenzhong looked at Zhao Wen quietly.

Zhao Wen was taken aback for a moment, a little confused, "What's the matter?"

"About accepting the concubine!" Liu Wenzhong replied.

Zhao Wen was embarrassed when he heard this.

After ascending the throne, Liu Wenzhong and other officials once wrote to Zhao Wen to let Zhao Wen accept the concubine.

At that time, because Zhao Wen was busy, he used a series of excuses to push him over.

After a long time, Zhao Wen's mind was on other things, so he naturally selectively forgot about this matter.

Now when Liu Wenzhong brought up the matter again, Zhao Wen suddenly remembered.

"I haven't forgotten, it's just that I've been busy recently, so I can't remember it for a while!" Zhao Wen said with a resentful face.

"Your Majesty, you are now the Ninth Five-Year Supreme. The matter of concubine acceptance cannot be delayed any longer. Although Your Majesty has five children, these five children are still too few. Your Majesty..."

Liu Wenzhong nagged and said a lot to Zhao Wen.

Hearing Liu Wenzhong's voice, Zhao Wen felt dizzy for a while.

The thinking of ministers like Liu Wenzhong is very simple. Zhao Wen must marry more wives and have more children.

As the saying goes, the royal family has no family affairs. In the eyes of these ministers, Zhao Wen's marrying a wife and having children is a major event, a major event for the family and the country.

The idea of ​​people in this era is very simple, that is, more children, more blessings.

Today, the territory that Zhao Wen has conquered far surpasses any dynasty in history. With such a large territory, five princes are definitely not enough.

Zhao Wen supported his forehead, and after Liu Wenzhong finished speaking, Zhao Wen let out a long sigh, "Aiqing is right, what Aiqing said is good, and I deeply agree with what Aiqing said!"

Although Zhao Wen became a little impatient when he heard Liu Wenzhong's long talk, Zhao Wen still listened to it.

"What Aiqing said, I think it is very correct. How about this, I will leave this matter to your Council. The matter of accepting my concubine will be handled by the Council." Zhao Wen looked at Liu Wenzhong.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, I will discuss this matter with my colleagues in the Council of Parliament after I go back. After the discussion is completed, I will present the specific regulations to Your Majesty." Liu Wenzhong bowed to Zhao Wen and saluted. , and then withdrew from the Royal Study Room.

Zhao Wen looked at the back of Liu Wenzhong leaving, shaking his head.

Zhao Wen is also a man, which man doesn't want to have more daughters-in-law?Of course Zhao Wen is no exception.

However, Zhao Wen felt that it was a bit too abrupt.

Recently, Zhao Wen has been busy dealing with political affairs, and has not thought about these issues.Now that Liu Wenzhong suddenly brought it up, Zhao Wen always felt a little abrupt.

Liu Wenzhong returned to the Yizheng Yuan, which is not far from the imperial palace, for the convenience of entering the palace, so that he can report to Zhao Wen as soon as possible if he encounters unsolvable matters.

With a smile on his face, Liu Wenzhong walked into the courtyard of the Senate.

As soon as he entered the courtyard, Liu Wenzhong saw the officials of the National Council standing in the courtyard waiting for him.

"Lord Liu, what's the matter? Has Your Majesty agreed?"

Officials from the House of Representatives surrounded him and questioned Liu Wenzhong.

Liu Wenzhong smiled and said, "Haha, it's done. Your Majesty agrees!"

"That's good, that's good. I thought His Majesty had forgotten about it. His Majesty hasn't mentioned it before."

"That's right, His Majesty hasn't said anything about it since that time, and I thought His Majesty had forgotten about it."

These ministers chattered and chattered, and at this moment they finally breathed a sigh of relief.

To some extent, if an emperor does not marry more wives and have more children, these ministers are probably more anxious than the emperor's parents.

"Your Majesty handed over the matter of accepting the concubine to the National Council. Let's try to get the specific regulations out before this afternoon and present them to Your Majesty. The matter of accepting the concubine must be completed around the Chinese New Year. Many things will be delayed." Liu Wenzhong shouted at these ministers.

"What Master Liu said is true, what he said is true!"

"Well, let's have a small meeting in the conference room later, you go down and get ready now!" Liu Wenzhong said.

A quarter of an hour later, in the conference hall of the State Council, these ministers sat in the conference hall according to their positions.

There are more ministers in the Senate than in the cabinet, so Zhao Wen specially built a conference hall in the Senate to facilitate the meetings of these ministers.

The conference hall is relatively large, made of cement bricks and tiles, and the exterior decoration is similar to the buildings of this era.

The conference hall is a separate room, not too big, and the layout inside is similar to that of the conference halls of later generations.

In the center is an oval table with chairs on either side.

Liu Wenzhong sat on the main seat, and the remaining ministers of the Senate sat on both sides of Liu Wenzhong in turn.

"Everyone, let's start the discussion now. How should we proceed with the concubine's appointment this time?" Liu Wenzhong stroked the beard on his chin and said.

The etiquette procedures for the emperor to marry the empress mainly include "Na Cai", "Da Zheng", "Book Li", "Welcome", "Join", "Celebrate", "Banquet", "Blessing", each link is very important. solemnly.

Generally speaking, the matter of accepting a concubine is not as important as marrying a queen, but this is the first time for Zhao Wen to accept a concubine, so he can't be too careless.

"Master Liu, I think the most important thing for us is to choose the origin of the concubine first. This is very important. I don't know if Mr. Liu asked about His Majesty's meaning?" A minister stood up and looked at Liu Wenzhong.

Liu Wenzhong said with some embarrassment: "I was a little anxious just now, so I forgot about it. How about this, let's discuss the next thing first, and I will ask His Majesty later."

In the following time, these officials of the Senate had heated discussions, and finally finalized the matter of Concubine Zhao Wenna.

As the sky gradually darkened, Liu Wenzhong walked into the imperial study with a booklet.

"Your Majesty, the ministers of the Council have almost discussed the matter of accepting concubines. This is the regulation formulated by the ministers. Please read it over." Liu Wenzhong stood in the imperial study, raised the booklet in his hand, and said loudly Said.

Zhao Wen put down the writing brush in his hand, looked at Chen Donglai, "Bring it up, and at the same time give Master Liu a seat!"

Chen Donglai hastily followed Zhao Wen's wishes.

After a dozen or so breaths, Zhao Wenfan looked at the regulations sent by Liu Wenzhong.

Although the time is short, the charter is fairly specific.Zhao Wen flipped through the time for a quarter of an hour and put it on the table.

"Yes, yes!" Zhao Wen said.

"Your Majesty, I have another question. That is the origin of the concubine! I wonder if Your Majesty has considered the origin of the concubine?" Liu Wenzhong didn't beat around the bush and asked bluntly.

Zhao Wen fell into deep thought, the emperor marrying a daughter-in-law is not an ordinary family marrying a daughter-in-law, every daughter-in-law he marries is very particular.

For thousands of years from ancient times to the present, except for the emperors of the Ming Dynasty who did not pay much attention to the origins of empresses and concubines, other dynasties and generations cared very much about the origins of empresses and concubines.

To some extent, Na Fei is more inclined to political marriage for the emperor.

Zhao Wen thought for a long time, and said: "No parentage is required. I don't make too many demands on my concubine's parentage. As long as she has a pure character and a gentle personality, it's fine."

Today's Zhao Wen doesn't need those so-called political marriages at all, so he doesn't need to make a series of requirements on the concubine's background.

"By the way, I read the content submitted by Aiqing just now, saying that I will accept ten concubines at once. I see, this number is a bit too much, let's reduce it to five." Zhao Wen said again.

"Why?" Liu Wenzhong looked at Zhao Wen with some confusion.

The emperors in history, except Ming Xiaozong, wished to fill their palaces with concubines. Why did they change so much when they came to Zhao Wen?

Zhao Wen didn't explain, "Just do as I said, just five. Moreover, the matter of accepting the concubine can't be delayed for too long. I gave you two months, and it must be completed within two months. "

The reason why Zhao Wen only accepts five concubines is not that Zhao Wen is Liu Xiahui, who is not chaotic, but that Zhao Wen feels that if there are too many wives, there will be more things in the harem. For Zhao Wen, something is not very good, especially now that the world has not completely calmed down.

Zhao Wen didn't want to delay too much time because of his concubine, after all, the world has not yet completely settled down.

"I obey the order!" Liu Wenzhong stood up, bowed to Zhao Wen, and exited the imperial study.

After Liu Wenzhong went back, he refined and added some details to Nafei's regulations.

Early the next morning, Liu Wenzhong came to the Imperial Study Room again with the detailed regulations.

After Zhao Wen read it, he agreed to the content of Liu Wenzhong's charter.

In the afternoon of that day, Liu Wenzhong pulled the officials from the Ministry of Rites over and set up a department in charge of accepting concubines.

In addition to establishing this department, Liu Wenzhong also had someone inform the newspaper about Zhao Wen's concubine.

The emperor concubine usually asks officials from all over the country to recruit beautiful women locally, and then push them up layer by layer, and screen them layer by layer.

The specific procedure Liu Wenzhong gave to Zhao Wen's concubine was similar, but the location was limited to Xuanzhen and Shanxi.

As for other places, it was given up by Zhao Wen.

Shanxi Zhao Wen was taken down relatively early, and the current development momentum is not bad. The incident of accepting concubines has little impact on the lives of local people.

In other places, they were either just taken down, or they were taken down not long ago, and the concubine's incident has more or less affected local production.

The next day, the newspaper office notified Zhao Wen about accepting his concubine.

For a while, the whole Xuanzhen and Shanxi were boiling.

No matter when, almost all people hope to marry their daughters to the royal family, because this is the fastest shortcut to improve their own status.

Xuanzhen and various places in Shanxi are discussing the matter of Zhao Wen's concubine.

Two days after the newspaper publicized, Liu Wenzhong sent a large number of people to various places in Xuanzhen and Shanxi to select beautiful women.

There are only two places in Xuanzhen and Shanxi, so Liu Wenzhong doesn't need to wait for the reports to be reported layer by layer.

In order not to affect the local government, Liu Wenzhong arranged the dispatched manpower directly to the local area and set up a special office for accepting concubines.

As soon as these places were established, they were full of people who came to sign up like a riot.

There was a long queue at the gate of Nafei's office in Fucheng, Taiyuan Prefecture.

Those who came to sign up were all unmarried parents with daughters. Although the queue was long, these parents who signed up were not dissatisfied, but very happy.

But it doesn't mean that all parents with daughters can come. It is clearly written in the newspaper that the requirements for registration must be above 25 years old, free of disease, and dignified.

Originally, Liu Wenzhong meant over 16 years old. After all, in this era, many 16-year-old girls are already married.

However, Zhao Wen felt that 16 years old was too young. Zhao Wen originally wanted to be over 20 years old, but Liu Wenzhong said that over 20 years old are big girls, and almost all of them are married.

After about seven or eight days, this registration site in Taiyuan Prefecture finally completed the registration.

After the registration is over, it is time to conduct open and unannounced visits to these applicants to find out the bottom line of these applicants.

The ancient emperor's concubine did not mean that as long as she looked good, she could enter the palace.Good looks are only one of the most basic conditions. One must be born clean, counting up to three generations, there must be no lawbreakers, and there must be no lawbreakers among relatives and friends.There are also a series of things such as family conditions, parental personality, and so on.

It took nearly a month for these people from the Taiyuan Prefecture Office to finally find out the details of these applicants.

There are exceptions, but not many.

In this way, almost [-]% of the people were eliminated.

Although there is still [-]% left, there are still hundreds of people.

These people from the Taiyuan Prefecture Office gathered the remaining people together for an "interview".

Among them, only 50 people left after the interview.

After being selected, these people boarded the train together with their families and were sent to Xuanzhen.

Except for Taiyuan Prefecture, those selected from other places in Shanxi also boarded the train and sent to Xuanzhen.

Taiyuan Fucheng is the largest city in Shanxi, and the most beautiful women are selected.There are only seven or eight sporadically in other places, but even so, it is a huge number when gathered together.

During the Chinese New Year, the beautiful women from Xuanzhen and Shanxi were finally sent to the temporary yamen set up by Liu Wenzhong.

Liu Wenzhong also took a group of officials and maids from the palace to assess these beautiful ladies.

And Zhao Wen, like a normal person, played around with his wife and children in the royal garden of the harem.

Sitting in the pavilion in the imperial garden, Zhao Wen looked at his son and daughter playing in the imperial garden with an indescribable ease on his face.

Li Xiaoying and Hai Lanzhu sat next to Zhao Wen, looking at her son or daughter just like Zhao Wen.

As for Zhao Wen's two newborn sons, they didn't come out because of the cold weather.

"Zhao Mingyu, what are you doing?" Li Xiaoying looked at Zhao Mingyu who was playing around in the imperial garden, her brows stood on end, and she shouted in a low voice.

At this time, Zhao Mingyu was grabbing a tree in the imperial garden and climbing up.

(End of this chapter)