If I fail to overcome the tribulation, I can only return to the Ming Dynasty and become a prince.

Chapter 259 Queen In Hyo Moon

The Heaven Sacrifice Ceremony was very expensive, and the Ministry of Revenue itself must have no money. Xia Yuanji also pointed to the harvest of summer grain to fill the financial hole of the Northern Expedition.

Although Zhu Zhanjuan had previously borrowed 200 million taels from businessmen, this could not completely cover the expenses of the Northern Expedition, especially since the money had to be repaid.

The merchant had a 200 million tael bill of exchange issued by Zhu Zhanchun's user department to pay off the debt, but it was a debt between Zhu Zhanchun and the Lianghuai merchants, and the debt between the imperial court and Zhu Zhanchun had not yet been paid off. Woolen cloth!
Initially, Zhu Zhanjuan and the merchants agreed to repay 200 million taels of silver with interest within three years, but when the court's money order was issued, the money was actually repaid.

However, Zhu Zhanjuan lent another 200 million taels of silver to the imperial court for the Northern Expedition, and the debt became owed to Zhu Zhanjuan by the Ministry of Revenue.

Although the repayment period was three years, Xia Yuanji did not dare to delay the debt for three years. After the summer grain was collected, he planned to return the money to Zhu Zhanchun.

After all, even if you don't consider the adverse effects of delaying for three years, just for the interest of these three years... there is no way to get Xia Laoji to pay more.

Since the Ministry of Revenue had no money, it was natural that they could not come up with money for the heaven-sacrifice ceremony, let alone build a temple for Queen Xu.

Fortunately, the emperor was very concerned about this matter, and he generously took 20 taels of silver from his internal funds to use specifically for the expenses of the heaven-sacrifice ceremony and Queen Xu's canonization of the gods.

Once the money is in place, everything will be easy. After all, silver was still valuable in the early Ming Dynasty, not to the level where an egg could be sold for one tael of silver like in the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

20 taels of silver is just for holding a ceremony to worship heaven and building a temple for Queen Xu. This is enough money anyway.

Moreover, part of the cost of the heaven-sacrifice ceremony is actually not that big. The real big cost is the cost of casting the nine tripods and building the temple for Queen Xu. After all, it was urgent, and the emperor specifically told Queen Xu to build the temple for everything. If you use the best, the expenses will go up.

Otherwise, a temple can be built for a few thousand taels of silver under normal circumstances, and the money for buying the land can be taken into account.

This time, the temple for Empress Xu was built with the best regulations and materials, so it cost a total of 7 taels of silver. This did not include the cost of the golden body, as well as the various wood, bricks and stones used to build the temple. They are all pulled directly from the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the cost price is calculated, and the labor is simply a corvee.

With such a large amount of money spent, the temple was naturally built with the utmost luxury, with golden nanmu columns made of the same material as the palace, railings made of white marble, floors paved with gold bricks, and carved beams gilded with gold...

That is to say, the golden glazed tiles of the imperial palace cannot be used on the tiles, so the blue glazed tiles of the prince pattern are used. But even so, the whole temple is still almost the same as the imperial palace. Even the main hall dedicated to the shrine of Queen Xu is almost the same as a prince. The Chengyun Hall in the Royal Palace has a similar standard, with seven second-level rooms, second only to the nine third-level rooms in the Fengtian Hall of the Imperial Palace.

"After spending so much money, this temple is finally built like this." Zhu Di walked in the temple that had not yet been completely completed, with a somewhat satisfied look on his face, and expressed to Wuzhong, the minister of the Ministry of Industry next to him. approval.

Because the temple was built for Empress Xu, and it was related to the subsequent incense and deification, Zhu Di was also very concerned about this matter. Not only did he send his trusted aides to supervise the construction, but now he came to inspect it himself.

The emperor personally came to inspect, and naturally no one dared to neglect it. Fortunately, the construction is now basically completed, the construction waste on the ground has been cleaned up, and the transplanted flowers and trees have basically survived. Looking at the whole building as a whole, The temple does look the same, and it has a solemn atmosphere, which makes the emperor very satisfied.

This is also what it looked like after Wuzhong learned that the emperor was coming to inspect and specially asked people to clean it up in advance, so that there would be no construction workers everywhere and the emperor would feel that everything was messy.

Otherwise, there are still a lot of unfinished things here, and the overall look is not so clean and tidy.

"Why is there only a statue of God here and the golden body is still empty?" When he walked into the main hall and saw that there was only one statue of God on the main throne receiving worship, and the place where the golden body was erected was still blank, Zhu Di couldn't help but frown and asked Wuzhong With.

Naturally, the gods enshrined in a temple must have golden bodies. Even a small land temple on the edge of a field, no bigger than a palm, will have a wooden or stone golden body for worship. Even if it is a small temple, there may only be one. It's only as big as a palm, so it's necessary.

Not to mention the royal temple, it has not really built a gold body of two feet, it has been restrained.

"When I return to the emperor, this is all in accordance with the request of His Highness Prince Zheng. He said that he will be personally responsible for the golden body." Wuzhong is not shirking responsibility. This is indeed Zhu Zhanqi's explanation.

Hearing what Wuzhong said, Zhu Di nodded slightly and didn't ask any more questions.

Only Zhu Zhanjun knew what was going on with the incense and the conferment of gods. Naturally, this matter had to be based on his instructions. If something went wrong and Empress Xu could not be conferred as a god smoothly, Zhu Dike would regret it. .

So after hearing that Wuzhong said it was Zhu Zhankun's order, he didn't say anything more. He just said: "Since King Zheng told him this, just follow his instructions and be careful not to make any mistakes." Something went wrong.”

"I don't dare! I must follow His Highness Prince Zheng's instructions and I don't dare to be expert." Wuzhong promised quickly. He was also an experienced minister and knew clearly what position Empress Xu held in Zhu Di's heart.

If things go smoothly this time, then of course hello, hello, everyone, but if not... then I can only hope that Zhu Di is in a good mood.

Just when Zhu Di inspected the area and was satisfied with everything and was about to leave, he suddenly saw Zhu Zhanquan coming in from outside the temple gate, commanding a group of Jade Guard soldiers, as if they were carrying something.

Zhu Di rolled his eyes and suddenly thought of the golden body that had not yet been placed, so he hurried over to see what was going on.

Seeing Zhu Di coming, Zhu Zhanquan hurriedly saluted. Zhu Di waved his hand to indicate that he didn't need to be polite, and asked impatiently: "Is this your grandma's golden body? Is this the time to install the golden body?"

"Returning to grandpa, this is grandma's golden body." Seeing Zhu Di's eagerness, Zhu Zhanquan also hurriedly explained: "Today we just put the golden body in place, and then we need to let the people worship for three days to absorb the incense, so that we can After grandma is conferred as a god, she will accommodate her soul. Therefore, after the golden body is installed, the people must be organized to worship. This cannot be forced and can only be done voluntarily by the people."

Hearing what Zhu Zhanqi said, Zhu Di was not worried. He just nodded and said: "Miaoyun showed great kindness to the people in the past, and there are many commemorations among the people. It is not a problem for people to worship her sincerely! Just why use this A piece of cloth covers your grandma’s golden body? Is there anything special about it?”

"Of course, this golden body can store the soul. Of course it is not an ordinary clay sculpture. It is also very tempting to the mountain spirits and monsters. What if this golden body is occupied by some evil spirit before grandma returns to the throne? , wouldn’t it mean that he made a wedding dress for others and smeared our royal family?" As soon as Zhu Zhanqun's words came out, Zhu Di's hand stretched out to the piece of cloth covering Jin's body froze immediately.

However, Zhu Di still asked Zhu Zhanyu with some concern: "Zhanyu, can you lift up a corner and let grandpa take a look? Just one look! Grandpa hasn't seen your grandma for many years, so I just want to take a look at this gold Doesn’t she look like her? Your grandma loved being beautiful the most during her lifetime. If she doesn’t look like her and your grandma dislikes her, grandpa will be blamed by her!"

As the daughter of General Xu Da, Queen Xu was well-educated and talented since she was a child, but her life was very simple. Even after she became a queen, she did not like luxury. Zhu Di's words were obviously not true, but he I just want to take a look at the golden body covered with cloth.

However, Zhu Zhanquan shook his head and said: "Until grandma is officially canonized as a god and the soul returns to its place, this piece of cloth cannot be moved. To be on the safe side, I will ask Dujiaban to stay here in the past few days, and he will also be asked to do so. Chanting sutras and praying for grandma.”

While saying this, Zhu Zhanyu also signaled, and the Du family class standing next to him also hurriedly greeted Zhu Di.

Dujiaban surrendered to the Ming Dynasty before, and his original arrangement was to conquer Uzang and stabilize his rule over the Mongolian grasslands.

However, he is a practitioner, and now that he has the spiritual stones given by Zhu Zhanquan to maintain his spiritual energy consumption, he naturally does not have to travel through mountains and rivers like ordinary people when he is on the road. Therefore, when the army arrived in Peiping, Du Jiaban set off for After leaving Uzang, I just returned to Nanjing.

At this time, Zhu Zhanjuan was worried about the lack of manpower under his command, so he sent him to chant sutras and pray for his grandmother.

When Zhu Di saw Zhu Zhanyu's arrangement, he had nothing to say and could only acquiesce to it. So the Ming Emperor, now the most powerful person in the world, could only look at a few soldiers of the Jade Guard helplessly. The golden body was carried into the hall and placed on the pedestal that had been prepared.

During the whole process, although the piece of cloth covering Jin's body swayed, it still firmly covered the entire Jin's body, without revealing the appearance of the Jin's body underneath.

This made Zhu Di a little disappointed, but he felt extra relieved. Then he saw Dujiaban sitting directly in the hall and starting to chant sutras. He didn't say anything, but just sighed: "Miaoyun advocated Buddhism during his lifetime. In fact, it’s not for herself, but she hopes to help me resolve my misfortune and atone for the murderous karma I committed during the crisis, hey..."

In the early Ming Dynasty, Buddhist beliefs were still prevalent in the court due to the influence of the Yuan Dynasty. Empress Xu also did a lot of research on Buddhist scriptures. In order to help Zhu Di consolidate his position and stabilize his rule, she personally wrote a book called "Dreams Sense the Buddha". "The First Hope of Great Merit Sutra" is used to consolidate and deify Zhu Di's dominance.

And after Zhu Di succeeded to the throne, he repeatedly persuaded Zhu Di to revere Buddhism in order to stabilize people's hearts, win over Buddhism, and add more legitimacy to Zhu Di's rule.

Not only that, when Queen Xu was still alive, she also persuaded Zhu Di to canonize the Tibetan Buddhist Dharma King of Uszang to stabilize the people's hearts and rule in the Uszang area, and made many contributions to the government.

Because of this, Zhu Di felt emotional when looking at the scene in front of him, remembering everything that happened when Queen Xu was still alive.

Seeing Zhu Di's appearance, Zhu Zhanju couldn't help but feel something. He persuaded Zhu Di: "Grandpa, please don't be sad. It's just a matter of waiting for a few more days. When the preparations for the ceremony of worshiping the heaven are completed in a few days, grandma If you succeed in becoming a god, you can see her again."

"Nonsense, your grandma is not old!" Zhu Di glanced at Zhu Zhanyu with dissatisfaction. In his eyes, Xu Miaoyun was still the beautiful woman he fell in love with at first sight. How could she be described as "old"?
But Zhu Di also knew that as long as he waited until the ceremony to sacrifice to heaven was over and Xu Miaoyun succeeded in becoming a god, he would be able to see his first wife again.

But for Zhu Di, he really wanted to see his long-lost queen. Even if he just looked at Xu Miaoyun's golden body covered with cloth, he didn't want to leave.

So Zhu Di asked Wuzhong on the side: "Is there a place to live in this back hall?"

"Back to the emperor, yes, when this temple was built, the apse was taken into consideration for people to live there, and according to His Highness King Zheng's instructions, all the regulations were arranged according to the empress's preferences during her lifetime, and now they have been properly arranged." Wuzhong I couldn't tell what the emperor wanted to do, so I quickly answered what the emperor wanted to hear.

As expected, Zhu Di nodded with satisfaction, and then said: "In that case, I will not return to the palace in the next few days, but will stay with Miaoyun here."

After saying that, he ignored everyone and wanted to turn around and walk to the back hall.

Seeing this, Wu Zhong hurriedly tried to persuade him, but Zhu Zhanquan on the side reached out to stop him: "Wu Shangshu, the emperor wants to accompany the queen here to grieve, so why should you stop him?"

"But the temple has not been completed yet. There will be craftsmen coming in for construction later. The personnel are messy. It is inconvenient and unsafe for the emperor to live here!" Wuzhong looked worried. He initially thought that the emperor wanted to wait until the temple was built. I came here to live for a while, but I didn’t expect to move in now.

Zhu Zhanquan shook his head slightly and said with a smile: "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Gu will transfer Gu's Qingyu Guards to guard. With Gu and Master Du's class here, there will be no problem."

Hearing what Zhu Zhanqun said, Wuzhong glanced at the Dujiaban who were chanting sutras in the main hall, then looked at Zhu Zhanqun in front of him, nodded helplessly and said: "In that case, I won't stop you, but I must inform His Highness the Crown Prince about this matter and let him know."

"Okay, you go tell my dad that grandpa is staying in grandma's temple these days, fasting and bathing, chanting sutras and praying for grandma, and preparing for the subsequent ceremony to worship the heaven." Zhu Zhanquan quickly compiled it. Reasons and excuses, no delay at all.

When Wuzhong heard what Zhu Zhanqun said, he had no objection. After all, the emperor wanted to offer sacrifices to heaven. Before the ceremony, he really needed to fast, bathe, and meditate. There was a complete set of procedures.

It's just that in the past, all these were done in the Jinshen Hall, but now it has been replaced by the Queen's temple. This is not a problem. Anyway, none of this ceremony is in accordance with the original etiquette regulations, so there is no This item is missing.

(End of this chapter)