My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 103 Father, you might as well wait and see

Do you want to be a prince?

For Liu Rong, this has never been a multiple-choice question, but a judgment question with a score-giving nature.

——Either be the prince, or be the eldest son of Emperor Xiaojing's concubine who "died strangely".

Regarding this point, Liu Rong had a very clear psychological understanding, and he knew it both inside and outside the court, and Emperor Qi probably knew it even more clearly.

But in the past, no one had ever asked Liu Rong so bluntly: Do you want to be a prince?
Do you really want to be the prince?

Liu Rong never expected that one day, the emperor's father would ask this question so bluntly and so abruptly.

——Ask this question that is tacitly acknowledged by both the government and the public, and even known to everyone, but it is extremely inappropriate to speak out or put it on the table.

So that Liu Rong couldn't help but be stunned for a moment when Emperor Qi suddenly attacked him unexpectedly.

Emperor Qi didn't pay attention to Liu Rong's reaction, but lowered his head and looked at the cavalry three-piece suit in his hand.

Then, he raised his head pretending to be indifferent and grinned inexplicably.

"The first is the chain soft armor. I think it is to improve the defense of our Han army and give the soldiers one more way to save their lives;"

"I found that the cost of chain mail was too high, so I immediately turned to porcelain as a way to make money."

"Porcelain has just started to get on the right track, and now it takes advantage of the Wu-Chu Rebellion to make these stirrups, saddles and horseshoes to improve the combat effectiveness of the cavalry and reduce the difficulty of cavalry training..."

"——Master, do you really want to be a prince?"

"Are you so anxious to gain the allegiance of the army and generals that I am forced to establish a crown prince?"

The words were spoken casually, but the way Emperor Qi looked at Liu Rong at this moment was filled with countless complex emotions.

Different from later generations who were extremely resistant to the "promising" princes and princes: as the beginning of the unified feudal dynasty of China, the Han family's attitude towards princes and princes was actually quite relaxed.

Take the current emperor Qi as an example: he was established as the crown prince at the age of eight, and moved out of the Jiaofang Hall of Weiyang Palace at the age of fifteen and moved into the Prince's Palace across Hao Street from Weiyang Palace;
Before Emperor Qi officially moved into the crown prince's palace, the entire team that belonged to the Crown Prince had already been assembled by the late Emperor.

——The "three princes" composed of the Crown Prince, the Crown Prince, the Prince's Young Master, and the Crown Prince Zhan Shi;
——The "Crown Prince and Nine Qings" composed of the positions of family official, concubine, housekeeper, horse washer, etc.

In addition, there is also the Prince's Guards, commanded by the Prince's Shield Guards, with an armed force of up to 2,000 people.

There is even a 'Sixian Garden' set aside for the prince in Shanglin Garden, where the prince can make friends with the world's heroes and gain his first batch of die-hard loyalists.

Who is the most trustworthy and least worrying person today?
Some people may say that it is Zhou Ren, the doctor.

But even Zhou Ren himself knew that the most reliable and loyal loyalists of Tian Ziqi today were definitely the tenant farmers who lived in Sixian Garden, rented the imperial fields of Sixian Garden, and received rewards every year and festival.

why?
Just think about it for a moment and you will understand.

You were originally a self-cultivated farmer in Guanzhong. Your ancestor Taizu Emperor Gao gave you a hundred acres of thin farmland, and you could get three hundred kilograms of grain a year.

Although you have to take away the taxes, levies, and exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes from local counties, the remaining part is still about 200 dan, which is enough for your family to eat until you are 70% full. Every year-at least every two years, there is still one new clothes to wear.

Later, major changes occurred in your family, such as the death of a relative, forcing you to sell off all your property to use it for the treatment and funeral of your relative.

When you lose your land, you turn from a yeoman to a tenant farmer.

According to the practice in the village, you can only humbly ask a certain rich householder to rent their land - not too much, only thirty or fifty acres at most.

If you work hard for a year, you can get more than a hundred tons of corn, and you have to give 40% or even half of it to rich households as a share of the land you rent.

The land available for you to cultivate has become half of what it used to be. If you also include nearly half of the farm harvest as rent, your family's annual income has dropped to a quarter of its original value in an instant.

It was barely enough for food and clothing, but now there is only one person missing from the family, and the income has plummeted by three-quarters. It is obvious that you cannot support this family just by farming.

So your wife began to sew and starch clothes for others, and your son went to the mountains to collect firewood and catch rabbits.

But even so, your family still has to borrow rice from neighbors from time to time to make a living.

As time goes by, your family owes more and more food, almost to the point where after the autumn harvest, there is almost nothing left after paying off the debt.

At this point, you have to start thinking about selling your children and daughters, or even selling yourself into the house of a big shot and committing yourself to slavery...

This is the general process of today's Han family farmers, step by step becoming semi-owner farmers, tenant farmers, and eventually losing their household registration and becoming slaves.

But the tenant farmers who rented imperial land in Sixianyuan were an extremely lucky group of people.

——Just when you were about to sell your son or daughter, the government sent a message saying that your application passed the review and you can rent the imperial land in Shanglin Garden!
You said you had no more food, and the officials said it didn't matter. They would lend you some for now and pay it back after the autumn harvest!

So, you took your family to Shanglin Garden, built a simple thatched house, and lived there.

The government has lent you a lot of land for farming, seventy or eighty acres in total;
The tenant rent is only 20%, which is more than half less than the private sector!
You rolled up your sleeves and worked hard. In the summer, the government sent another message saying that the field you rented had been included in the Prince's Sixian Garden, and you became the Prince's tenant farmer.

The prince paid a visit and promised many rewards to the tenant farmers of Sixian Garden, and also exempted them from agricultural taxes for three years.

More than ten years have passed like this, and you are still renting 80 acres of land, and the whole family has enough food and clothing.

Looking back on the past ten years - not to mention that I haven't paid much rent and taxes, but because of the prince's occasional rewards, I have saved enough to buy ten or twenty acres of land!
Your son has also grown up to be a man. He was called by the prince as a personal guard. His salary is enough to support his wife and children, and he can also send you some grain, rice, meat and cloth from time to time.

Just when you were looking forward to the future and rejoining the class of yeoman farmers, your neighbor who became a sharecropper with you and sold yourself into a wealthy family as a slave came out with the news that he was beaten to death by the wealthy family... …

This is the source of the loyalty of the tenant farmers of Sixian Garden to today's emperor Qi.

——Without the Emperor Qi, these people would basically be unable to escape the tragic end of becoming slaves and losing their descendants.

And now, among those old men wandering around Sixian Garden, who wouldn’t point their nostrils in the sky and say to others: My son/grandson Bucai is serving His Majesty today?
And these are the foundations and wings that today's emperor Qi gained after gaining the late emperor's approval and even his full support during his reign.

In the words of this era: Weaving wings for the prince and prince is not only something that the emperor can do, but the entire court and inside and outside will also be happy to see the success, and even lend a hand when appropriate.

Regarding the princes and princes, what the emperor of the Han Dynasty feared was not "too promising" but "not promising".

In the words of later generations, the Han family was not afraid of the prince's troubles, but was afraid that the prince would not live.

It is precisely for this reason that Qicai, the emperor during the reign of the late emperor, was able to take his younger brother Liu Wu to play and cause trouble throughout the land of Sanfu;
When he came back late, he was blocked at the palace gate and city gate by Tingwei Zhang Shizhi, who cursed him so hard that the late emperor had no choice but to take off his hat and apologize.

Also because of this reason, although Liu Rong was more careful in the past, he did not go to any lengths to hide his clumsiness like the princes of later generations, or even just pretended to be crazy.

until today;

Emperor Qi asked Liu Rong so carelessly: Do you really want to be the prince?

Even though he had never prepared an answer for this question, Liu Rong finally slowly raised his head and looked at the royal couch with burning eyes.

He opened his mouth, but instead of answering he asked: "Father, why did you call me just now?"

The inexplicable question made Emperor Qi narrow his eyes subconsciously, but he also said: "Young Master?"

Then Liu Rong nodded with a smile, and then he was full of sighs and let out a long sigh.

"Including Pig from Qilan Palace, and Yue who was just born—my father has a total of eleven sons."

"For those who are a little older, my father will call them Lao Er Lao San, Lao Si Lao San, Lao Si Lao Qi;"

"For the two younger ones in Qilan Palace, my father also calls them Ah She and Ah Yue."

"——Only my son, I am the 'Gongzi Rong' and 'Ronggongzi' in my father's mouth, not the boss or Ah Rong."

"Father, why do you think this is happening?"

The words with a slight smile only made the emperor raise his eyebrows, but Liu Rong just shook his head.

Taking a deep breath, he said again: "Father, do you know how my brothers are called both inside and outside the court?"

"——Gongzide, Gongziyu, or Gongzifei, Gongzi Pengzu."

"Only my sons and ministers will be called: eldest son by them in person."

"Even in private, few people dare to call their son 'Gong Zirong'. Instead, they call him: the eldest son of the emperor..."

Having said this, Liu Rong only smiled and shook his head with a self-deprecating smile. Fang raised his head again and looked intently at the calm face on the imperial couch with an unclear expression of joy and anger.

"It doesn't matter whether I want to be the Crown Prince or not."

"——Whether you want it or not, son, you have to do it."

"Because from the day he was born, when he became the eldest son of his father, and no legitimate son was born in Jiaofang Palace, countless people have already chosen the answer to this question."

"Son, you can only be a prince, and you must be a prince."

"Just like back then, no matter how dangerous my father was, he would never dare to give up his position as Crown Prince to Liu Yi, King Huai of Liang..."

The tone was calm but full of firmness, which made Emperor Qiwei startled, but Liu Rong slowly stood up and stepped forward with his hands behind his hands.

Facing Emperor Qi on the imperial couch, he raised his head slightly and looked towards the palace outside the palace.

There was helplessness and determination between his eyebrows.

"Yu Zi, my son must become the crown prince to prevent the half-brother who has become the crown prince from brutally massacring the mother and son of my Phoenix Palace."

"Young Master, my son also needs to become a prince. Only in this way can the father and the emperor be accused by the world of 'abolition of elders and establishment of young ones', and to avoid the suspicion of the young master of the Han family in the future." The answer is to sit on the throne of the Crown Prince."

"To achieve this goal, the first thing I have to do is to be a good son to my father..."

After another few words, the emperor finally felt a strange emotion flash between his brows, as if he was aroused by Liu Rong's answer.

Liu Rong turned around with a smile, walked up the imperial steps, knelt down beside the imperial couch and stood up.

"The purpose of making ordnance is not to gain the allegiance of the army."

"——Yu Gong, I want to gain recognition both inside and outside the court, so as to increase the bargaining chips for myself to be established as a reserve;"

"Privately, I just want to help my father in order to gain his recognition and appreciation - and also to increase my chances of becoming a prince."

···
"My father asked my son: Do you really want to stay in the crown prince's womb?"

"The son answered his father: Yes."

"——son, if you want to live in the Taiwong's womb, you must also live in the Taiwang's womb."

"This couple, as well as the son's mother and the son's two brothers, are all the best results;"

"This is especially true for our Han family's ancestral temple and Sheji..."

There is no hysteria, broken cans, or trembling, tongue-tied;

There is no vulgar saying "A prince who does not want to be a prince is not a good prince", or it is extremely hypocritical: the father will be immortal for generations to come.

Just like that - just like chatting with old friends, he nodded calmly and indifferently: Yes;

Son, I just want to be a prince...

"If you dare to admit it in front of me, you can be considered responsible..."

Thinking like this secretly, the emperor raised his face, but a hint of gloom quietly emerged.

He looked at Liu Rong with evil eyes and stared at him for quite a while;

He got up from the imperial couch and walked to Liu Rong, who was kneeling on the ground. He bowed his waist with his hands behind his hands, wanting to touch his head and cheek, hoping to see something in Liu Rong's eyes.

But seeing Liu Rong's eyes clear and his face calm, Emperor Qi finally narrowed his eyes again, and there was an inexplicable chill in his tone.

"What if I don't allow it?"

"What if I don't allow the young master to fight for the heir apparent and make me angry because of this, and make things difficult for the young master at every turn?"

"It's more likely that I got tired of the young master and fell in love with one of the young master's younger brothers - such as the pig from Qilan Palace..."

"Master, how should we deal with it and how should we deal with it?"

Listening to Emperor Qi staring at him face to face and saying such shocking words, Liu Rong didn't show any panic on his face.

Not even the name of his tenth brother Liu She made Liu Rong feel even the slightest emotion in his heart.

——In the original history, Liu She, the tenth son of the emperor, was indeed the famous Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

But now, he is only the tenth prince who is only two years old - not even two years old yet.

Then Liu Rong smiled in response, immediately stood up from the ground, and held his hand to the emperor's father with a warm look.

Then, he said something that seemed idealistic, but in fact was also extremely calm.

"Father won't."

···
"Emperor Taizu Gao liked that King Zhao Liu Ruyi was like himself, but he disliked Emperor Xiaohui's benevolence and weakness."

"But in the end, Emperor Xiaohui became the 'Emperor Xiaohui'; King Zhao Liu Ruyi finally became King Zhao Yin."

·
"The former Emperor Taizong Xiaowen liked Liang Wang Liu Yi to be like himself, but he disliked his father's mediocre talent."

"But the father eventually became the son's 'father', not the father."

"And Liu Yi, the king of Liang, is just 'King Huai of Liang' in the end."

Having said this, Liu Rong straightened up slightly and looked up at the emperor's father in front of him.

There was a burst of indescribable confidence between his brows, and a heroic appearance that made the emperor feel jealous.

"Wu Chu's momentum is huge, but the court has already made plans. In half a year at most, my father will be able to put an end to the chaos and bring peace to the world."

"When the chaos is over, Uncle Liang will take advantage of his unparalleled achievements and enter the court to force his father to redeem his promise as 'the crown prince'."

"At that time, in order to cut off Uncle Liang's thoughts, my father had no choice but to establish the crown prince as the crown prince."

"——The tenth prince, who is only two years old, can defeat Uncle Liang's ambitions."

"Only the emperor's eldest son, who is close to the crown, is still young, and has a legitimate reputation, can be used as his father's horse to force Uncle Liang Wang back."

"And this emperor's eldest son happens to be his son-in-law..."

But when Emperor Qi heard this, he just sneered disdainfully, then he straightened up, held his hands behind his back and raised his head, looking down at Liu Rong.

"Young master, are you so sure?"

"Even if I have established the prince as the crown prince, if I want to depose the prince, it is just a matter of issuing an edict."

Liu Rong only smiled at this, but did not continue to refute.

Instead, he smiled and thought for a moment, then bowed again.

"Ruo'er is useless, and at that time he caused a lot of resentment both inside and outside the court. My father's deposing of the crown prince is really just a matter of an edict."

"But in the eyes of my father, are my sons really so useless?"

"—You are still just the eldest son of the emperor, but your sons and ministers are already jumping up and down, doing whatever they can, hoping that everyone in the world will know that you want to be the crown prince and heir apparent;"

"When I become the crown prince, how can I restrain myself in the crown prince's womb?"

The words that were full of confidence and even somewhat provocative made the emperor raise his eyebrows again, and his eyes looked at Liu Rong full of teasing.

"Young master, do you want to say that in the future, even if I intend to abolish the throne, I will be afraid of you because of your power and will not dare to do anything without permission?"

Hearing this, Liu Rong just took a deep breath and bowed again with a smile.

"Father, we can wait and see..."

"--Ah!"

"——We'll have to wait and see!"

Then they saw Emperor Qi suddenly flicking his sleeves, with a cold smile that seemed happy, angry, or angry, strode back to the imperial couch and sat down.

With an intriguing look, he looked under Liu Rong for a while before letting out a disdainful snort.

"Don't go to the Shaofu again until the Wu Chu rebellion is over."

"——The eyes of the Queen Mother of the East Palace are not completely 'blind' yet."

"Take good care of your one-third-acre land in Phoenix Palace and do your part well."

"No matter how easy it is to think about going to Suiyang to reward the army on my behalf."

"Think about it, come and talk to me when the time comes."

Seeing Emperor Qi's reaction, Liu Rong immediately understood: the Han family's tolerance towards the prince and crown prince was truly unmatched by future generations.

Especially before a certain Emperor Taizong, the wariness of Chinese emperors towards their heirs was so low that it was almost negligible.

In addition, now, even the ruthless prince raising an army to "conspire" has not happened yet, and the world is governed by filial piety. No one would think that a son would disobey his father's Han family...

"My son, I respectfully obey my father's edict..."

"——Well, go ahead."

After giving an indifferent response to Liu Rong, Emperor Qi instinctively lowered his head and looked at the pile of drawings again.

Just a moment later, he felt annoyed for no reason.

"If you have nothing to do, don't run to my Xuanshi Palace!"

"I'm so angry when I see you bastard!!!"

　First update today

　　
　
(End of this chapter)