Chapter 1238: Winning over court officials, Mid-Autumn Festival family dinner

After the birthday banquet for the tenth prince Yin'e, Kangxi's impression of the prince recovered a lot.

This led to most of the prince's party mistakenly believing that the storm was over.

Only a few people understood that Crown Prince Yinreng was frequently touching Kangxi's bottom line.

When Kangxi could no longer tolerate it, the dethronement of the crown prince would become a foregone conclusion.

Seeing that Kangxi was in a good mood, Su Mingzhe took the opportunity to ask his first wife Rouze to enter the palace and ask Concubine De for help in getting an imperial decree to allow Niuhuru Lanxin, who had been engaged last year, to marry him.

Because Niohuru Lanxin had already been engaged to the Fourth Prince Yinzhen, Kangxi did not refuse the marriage and agreed to it without hesitation. He also set the wedding date on the auspicious day of September 9th, the Double Ninth Festival.

However, when Su Mingzhe wanted to marry Ulanara Yixiu as his concubine, Kangxi directly refused.

In addition, Kangxi also rejected the request to promote the fourth prince's concubine Li.

The husband-wife system of the Qing Dynasty continued the Jurchens' polygamy.

Whether it is the principal wife or the concubine, they are all classified as "ladies" and the children born to them have the right of inheritance.

When a prince marries a principal wife or a concubine, he needs the emperor's approval and canonization before he can marry her.

But a concubine is different.

Among the prince's women, a concubine is only one level higher in status than a concubine or a princess, and the children born to her do not have the right to inherit the family property.

There is a rumor in history that the reason why the Eighth Prince Yinsi was not considered as the heir to the throne by Kangxi was because the Eighth Prince's mother was of low status and was a "concubine", not even a legitimate wife of the master.

Now, Kangxi refused to let his fourth prince marry a widow as his concubine, nor did he allow the concubine Li to be promoted to concubine. Su Mingzhe had no choice but to obey the arrangements.

Kangxi's imperial edict was transmitted to Prince Zhen's mansion.

Li was already satisfied with being a concubine. After all, she was just a concubine before.

Only Ulanara Yixiu began to feel unhappy because she could only be a concubine and not a concubine.

At this point, she has to get married whether she wants to or not.

After getting married, Yixiu urged her sister Rouze to take her to the palace to meet her mother-in-law and aunt, Concubine De, every day, hoping that Concubine De could speak up for her.

Her action did not gain any rewards, but it eased the tension between Su Mingzhe and Defei.

When the Fourth Prince Yinzhen was a child, Concubine De was only "Pin De", just like Concubine Liang now, and had no right to raise the prince.

Therefore, when Yinzhen was very young, he was sent to Kunning Palace and raised by Empress Xiaoyi Ren, Longkodo's sister.

When "Depin" was promoted to Defei and was qualified to raise a prince herself, the prince she gave birth to was the fourteenth prince Yinzhen.

Originally, Defei felt very close to Yinzhen, whom she raised, and she just disliked Yinzhen, her son who was not raised by her.

Now, Yixiu brought her sister Rouze and Yinzhen's eldest brother Honghui to visit her aunt Defei.
No matter how much Defei disliked Yinzhen, she was still particularly fond of her two nieces from her natal family and her eldest grandson Honghui.

As a result, the relationship between Su Mingzhe and Concubine De was also eased.

As the relationship between mother and son grew closer, some of Defei's relationships also opened up to Su Mingzhe.

Finally, before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Su Mingzhe successfully persuaded Alinga, the Minister of the Imperial Guard and the Minister of State Council, to join him!
Alinga, a member of the Niuhuru clan, was the son of Ebilun, the brother-in-law of Concubine De, and the uncle of the fourth prince Yinzhen and the fourteenth prince Yinzhi.

Su Mingzhe's new concubine, Lan Xin, is Alinga's cousin.

With the dual kinship of Lan Xin and Concubine De, even if Alinga looked down on the princelings, he had no resistance to Su Mingzhe's "soul-stealing technique". After taking down Alinga, Su Mingzhe felt that he was one step closer to the throne.

At this moment, more than 50% to 60% of the "princelings" have switched their allegiance to Su Mingzhe.

The current Prince's Party can be renamed as the 'Fourth Master's Party'.

It can be said that as long as the crown prince is deposed and Kangxi dies, Su Mingzhe can be smoothly pushed onto the throne.

This day, Mid-Autumn Festival, is a day for family reunion.

Kangxi asked the princes to bring their families to the palace for reunion.

The names of Maertai Ruoxi and Guoluo Luoshi Mingyu were also mentioned specifically, leaving everyone guessing.

Early in the morning, Su Mingzhe brought his wife Rouze, his concubine Nian Shilan, as well as the eldest prince Honghui and the eldest daughter Jiashan into the palace.

As soon as they entered the palace, Rouze and Nian Shilan, as well as the eldest prince Honghui and the eldest daughter Jiashan, were taken by the chief eunuch of Yonghe Palace to pay homage to Concubine De.

Su Mingzhe came to the Qianqing Palace alone.

After he clasped his fists and saluted to the Third Prince who had arrived earlier, the other princes also came over and greeted him.

The eighth prince Yinsi always liked to win people's hearts and preferred to show his benevolence and morality. When he got together with his brothers, he sighed in a generous and melancholy tone:

"It's a pity that big brother is not here, otherwise, we brothers could get together and have a couple of drinks tonight!"

Everyone knows that in order to compete for the throne, the princes are now divided into the Prince's Party, the Eldest Prince's Party, and the Eighth Prince's Party.

As a result, the Eighth Prince showed this expression in front of everyone, pretending to be hypocritical, which made the Third Prince unable to help but sneer:

"Eighth brother, when did you become so close to Big Brother?"

Faced with the provocation of the Third Prince, the Eighth Prince had not even opened his mouth yet, but the Ninth Prince Yin'er and the Tenth Prince Yin'e next to him could not stand it anymore and started quarreling with the Third Prince.

Seeing that a quarrel was about to break out, Su Mingzhe frowned and raised his eyebrows at the Fifth Prince Yinqi, the Seventh Prince Yinyou, and the Thirteenth Prince Yinxiang beside him.

A few people walked over tacitly and separated the people who were about to quarrel.

Although they were all members of the Prince's Party, the relationship between the Third Prince Yinzhi and the Fourth Prince Yinzhen, the Fifth Prince Yinqi, and the Thirteenth Prince Yinxiang was not harmonious.

Five years ago, when the mother of the Thirteenth Prince Yinxiang, Zhang Jia, passed away, Kangxi not only posthumously conferred her the title of "Min Fei", but also ordered the princes to mourn for Min Fei for a hundred days.

As a result, the third prince Yinzhi, relying on the favor of his mother, Concubine Rong, did not take the mourning for Concubine Min seriously at all. He ate, drank, played and had fun as usual.

When Kangxi learned that Yinzhi had disobeyed his orders, he was so angry that he not only deprived Yinzhi of his title, but also punished everyone in Yinzhi's mansion.

After this incident, the third prince Yinzhi and the thirteenth prince Yinxiang became unfriendly.

The Thirteenth Prince Yinxiang was Su Mingzhe's loyal younger brother, so Su Mingzhe and Yinzhi did not have a very good relationship.

At this moment, everyone tried to stop the fight. The fifth prince Yinqi and the seventh prince Yinyou held the third prince Yinzhi, Su Mingzhe and Yinxiang, and the eighth prince Yinsi held Yin'er, Yin'e and Yin'zhen.

The farce soon came to an end with the arrival of the leading eunuch Li Dequan.

"My dear brothers, the Saint is about to arrive. Let's prepare to welcome him!"

(End of this chapter)