Chapter 18 Encountering the "Immortal Killing Sword" on the Road

After staying one night at the inn in Fengjiazhuang, Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai set off in a hurry and continued to the southwest.

On the second day, they came to Jining from Yanzhou.

Jining was still a "prefecture" in the first year of Emperor Taizu's reign. Yanzhou was affiliated to Jining Prefecture at that time, but later Taizu named his tenth son King of Lu and vassalized Yanzhou. , so Yanzhou was promoted to a prefecture, and Jining was demoted to a state.

Anyway, these two places are right next to each other. Administratively, anyone can trick the other. You will understand this by looking at the map, so I won’t dwell on it.

Here we still have to talk about this "King Lu".

Don’t get me wrong. The King of Lu who was conferred by Emperor Taizu himself is not the same person as the King of Lu whom we are going to mention right now. They are three different people. It’s been over a hundred years.

"Lu" is a title.

Emperors basically grant vassal kings based on place names (most dynasties do this, but there are exceptions. For example, in the Song Dynasty, the names were named with auspicious characters). Those whose fiefdoms are in Shandong are called King Lu, and those in Sichuan are called Shu. The king in Liaodong is called the King of Liao; some are named directly after counties and counties, such as the King of Huainan, the King of Chenliu...

The title of this prince can be hereditary, and is usually given by The eldest son inherits.

In other words, the eldest son of King Lu will still be called King Lu after he succeeds him. As long as this line of incense continues, the "King of Lu" will always exist, but it will only be called the person with this title. Probably dozens have been replaced.

So what’s going on with names like “King Lu Huang” and “King Lu Ai”?

Those are all names given to dead people. The character in their names is "posthumous name". Posthumous names are summed up by others after a person's death based on his virtues or experiences in his life. What " "Wenwu Chengguang", "Jie Zhou Youyang"... These words were added after death, but they were not included when he was alive.

If you dare to call a living prince King Lu Yang, then he will most likely kill you on the spot.

To sum up, the King of Lu in our story does not have the middle character, let alone his son Zhu Xu.

If Zhu Xu can officially succeed King Lu in the future, then he may really be called "Huang" after his death. However, whether this "if" will happen, I believe you all know in your heart... …

Let’s go back to King Lu. His surname is Zhu Mingcheng. He is already seventy-three this year. According to the saying, he is “living on a rough patch”.

Some people may have something to say when they see this, why are all the descendants of the Zhu family in your book single-named? This is not in line with the etiquette of the Ming Dynasty.

I have to reply to you. What I am writing about is the Da Ming of a certain parallel universe, not the Ming Dynasty we are familiar with.

I know that in the Ming Dynasty, only Zhu Yuanzhang's twenty-six sons had single names, and all of them had the character "木" next to them; I also knew that the Lu family should follow the "Zhao Taiyang is healthy, and longevity is observed" Use Hong to promote both hope and success, and Kangzhuang meets the original.The twenty characters "Ning" are combined with the radicals of "Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood" to formulate and name them in a cycle.

But every time I write about a person from the Lao Zhu family, I have to look up the characters to name. ...Isn't this too troublesome? I'm not a prince, so why should I worry about it?

So in this book, the rules of "Twenties" do not exist. Okay, let’s keep the rules of fire, earth, metal, water, and wood.

Back to the topic...

The king of Lu, Zhu Hao, and the current emperor, Zhu Fu, are the same generation, but there is an age difference of more than 20 years. Years old.

Zhu Hao is lucky in this life - he has a good life, he is the eldest son.

Prince Dazao’s rule of recognizing heirs rather than concubines makes him happy. The fate of the legitimate son and the concubine have become very different.

No matter how much Zhu Huo fails to make progress, he does not have to worry about his future livelihood. Therefore, in his life... he has almost nothing but eating, drinking and having fun. Do other things.

Of course, you can’t say how miserable he is. If it were you... If you knew that you would be financially free in your life, you would still do it. Work hard?

I won’t do it anyway

Because like everyone here, I don’t work very hard even if I don’t have financial freedom now.

Talking about Zhu Hao, he has lived in this way for more than seventy years. If there is anything that has worried him in these years, it should be - before the age of forty-eight, he only had a daughter and no "son." ".

This matter is a big deal in the prince's family, because the position of prince is passed down from male to female, and even his legitimate daughter can only inherit part of his fiefdom and the title of a princess. , if there are no sons to inherit the remaining fiefdoms and palaces, the court will take them back. However, Zhu Zhen married so many wives and concubines, and it happened that all of them gave birth to daughters.

So. , between the ages of forty and forty-six, none of his wives had any more children. Needless to say, Zhu Alone should understand that... there must be something wrong with him.

Unexpectedly, when Zhu Hao was forty-seven, his third concubine, who was more than ten years younger than him, actually got pregnant again.

How did you get pregnant? Refer to the traditional cross talk "Tie the Doll".

I won't go into details about this sloppy traditional art passage here, because our book is obviously in a more sloppy state.

As for Zhu Hao...he is not stupid either. He is naturally very suspicious that the child is not his.

However, since he has no evidence to prove that the third aunt is having an affair with an outsider, Secondly, people at that time did not have a full understanding of infertility, and they still took chances.

So, he pretended to be confused about it for the time being...

All the way to the third auntOn the day she gave birth, Zhu Hao stood outside the room and waited for several hours, and finally waited for a cry.

The midwife took the baby out and showed him, hey, it’s a boy, and he does look a bit like him.

Zhu Hao thought for a while: Could it be that God really has the foresight to allow me to have a child in my old age (people's life span was short at that time, and I was already called an old man at the age of 48)?

That day, after he handed the child over to the nanny, he immediately ordered someone to strangle his third aunt to death and bury her quietly.

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What kind of logic is this?

It’s very simple: he has a lot of concubines, and if he kills one, he won’t feel too distressed, but on the contrary, if he lets this woman who may have cuckolded him alive, it will make him continue to doubt her. , entangled, aggrieved...

So, even if he could not confirm whether the third aunt had stolen someone, he would rather kill him by mistake than release him by mistake.

As for the child, he has another standard...

Although he is not sure whether the child is his, he can keep the child first and wait for the baby. When you grow up, you can see whether it looks like you or not before you make a decision. Try to avoid killing by mistake as much as possible.

Double standards? Vicious? Is it cold?

Yes, but this is real human nature. In a specific era and under a specific environment, you may have the same logic as him.

To make a long story short, seven years passed in the blink of an eye.

The baby boy born by the third concubine, namely Zhu Huo, has been fostered by Zhu Huo's wife. He hardly leaves the house and sees no one else. The existence of this child is unknown to everyone in the palace. They all remained silent.

This... is to make two preparations: first, if Zhu Xu really looks like Zhu Hu when he grows up, then he will naturally declare that this is the eldest son born to his wife; second, If Zhu Xu looks nothing like Zhu Zhen when he grows up, then he will be killed and treated as if there has never been such a person in the palace.

Zhu Yue is very lucky. Although he has no blood relationship with Zhu Hao, he inexplicably looks like Zhu Hao when he was a child.

Zhu Hao watched Zhu Huo grow up year by year, and he really looked like himself, and gradually he believed that this was really his son.

At this moment, he felt a little sorry for his third aunt in his heart. Of course...it was just a little bit.

In short, when Zhu Huo was seven years old, Zhu Hao suddenly announced officially that he had a son, and he was already seven years old. He also said that he was born to his first wife.

He had also thought about it. If the court asked him why he did not report the birth of a son, he would pretend to be confused and say that he had forgotten because he was old.

But how could the court not know about his dirty tricks? Which prince's palace doesn't have elaborate works arranged by the imperial court? What if people get paid for free?

However, precisely because they knew the details of this child, the court turned a blind eye.; Because the person in charge of surveillance also felt that the child did look like Zhu Hao and should be his biological son. According to the principle of "no direct descendants", no matter which mother gave birth to him, Zhu Hao's eldest son would always be him. There is no need to bring up the matter of killing the third concubine back then and make it extraneous.

In this way, at the age of seven, Zhu Xu finally had a legal identity, and reported to the court and confirmed the name "Zhu Xu".

Of course... Zhu Huo himself was still young at the time. He didn't know about the cock-crowding and dog-robbery incidents of the previous generation. He also always thought that his own mother was Zhu Huo's first wife.

Time flies and time flies.

In the blink of an eye, the little prince has grown up, and Zhu Alder has grown old.

Although Zhu Hao is not dead yet, the real power of the Lu Palace has already fallen into the hands of Zhu Xu.

The sphere of influence of the Lu Palace has continued to increase over the years. According to our current geographical understanding, it has expanded to the entire Jining area and surrounding areas.

Among all the remaining princes in Dashu, King Lu can be considered a very powerful one. As the actual person in charge of King Lu’s palace, Zhu Xu is undoubtedly the most powerful person in Jining. Call the wind and rain to do whatever you want.

The Fire Lotus Sect, which relied on him as its backer, was also rampant in the countryside and was lawless.

No, right before their eyes, when Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai were queuing up to enter the city gate, they encountered the Fire Lotus Sect's "Setter".

This group of Fire Lotus sect members are dressed in black uniforms with a fire lotus embroidered on the chest and back. They either carry knives or swords. Most of them walk with their nostrils turned upward, swaggering and arrogant. Domineering... If I didn't say they were religious, I would have thought they were bandits who were uniformed.

Today they set up a card here, and the excuse they used is - last night a thief broke into the palace at night with evil intentions. Fortunately, the palace has the Fire Lotus Immortal stationed there. The thief was caught by the Immortal's power as soon as he entered the courtyard. Frightened, he vomited three liters of blood and ran away with his head in his hands. In order to protect the safety of the palace, the Great Immortal did not chase the thief. However, the thief must not have escaped from Jining area. Therefore, from now on, the Fire Lotus Sect will search for people coming and going at various city gates. Travelers, in order to capture bandits, if anyone disobeys, he will be punished as a traitor.

"Come on, come on, come on, come on! Don't wait around, show everything in the bag yourself, don't let me do it!"

But he said The leader of the seven or eight Fire Lotus Cultists at the city gate was standing under the city gate with an unsheathed sword in his hand, shouting and gesturing for the people behind to follow them.

This group of people said they were "searching for thieves" and even pretended to be holding a portrait in their hands. In fact, they had no intention of catching thieves at all, they were just "plucking out feathers" here. Search for oil and water.

The rich scrape some money, the poor scrape some things, and when they meet a pretty girl and a young wife, they have to do something...

Who would be " If you don't cooperate with them, they will bluff, shout, and beat you around, saying that you are an accomplice of the bandits. Who dares to resist?

The people nearby also know what happens if they offend the Fire Lotus Sect. They have been used to being bullied by this gang for a long time. They dare to be angry but dare not speak out. For this "toll", they The patience is over.

"Hey! Those two behind you, what are you doing! What are you two doing sneakily? Come here!"

After waiting in line for a long time, finally... It was Sun Yixie and Huang Dong's turn.

The two of them obviously cannot accept the search easily, because these two guys have too many shady things on their bodies and in their bags...

Putting aside that pile Not to mention the gadgets used by Taoist priests for practicing magic, the key is that their luggage also contains a large amount of gold, silver, banknotes, poisons, hidden weapons, lime powder...

If these things are found, 30% of them will be recovered. You'd be shocked. If they were all found, they would definitely call for reinforcements and arrest the two of them.

So Sun and Huang were queuing up, observing, and whispering... discussing how to pass through the city gate.

"Hmph!" Sure enough, when faced with the Fire Lotus cultist's shouts and questions, Sun Yixie put on a completely different attitude from ordinary people, "Who do you think you are? What are we talking about? What do we need?" Do you want to report to a guy like you?"

"Huh?" The brother holding the knife was stunned.

He has been standing at the city gate for a long time, and no one has dared to talk to him like this. Even the dignitaries who entered the city in sedan chairs ordered their servants to speak respectfully. After giving them money and saying a few nice words, they were released.

"Hey~are you crazy?" the Fire Lotus cultist holding the knife said, raising the knife and shaking it in front of Sun and Huang, "You know who you are following. "Speak?"

"I don't know, you should tell me." Huang Donglai choked back.

When they said these two sentences, the surrounding Fire Lotus cultists also felt that something was wrong, so they all gathered around.

"Haha...hahahaha!" The little leader with the knife saw that his accomplices were coming over, and he became more courageous. He sneered for a while and said to Shuangxi, "Okay, little smash, Today, grandpa, I will make it clear to you, you two, please stand still!" As he spoke, he straightened his back, hit the bridge of his nose, raised his chin, and said proudly, "Sir, I will. It’s the fifth seat of the Fire Lotus Sect’s Qinglian Hall—‘Immortal Sword’ Peng Er!”