Yingdu, the palace of the king of Chu.

Li Yuan walked into the palace quickly, and all the palace people along the way saluted this Huiji monarch.

According to the etiquette system, Li Yuan, who did not get the king's order, should not walk in the palace so swaggeringly, but in view of the fact that Li Yuan's sister is the Empress Dowager Li, the rules in the palace basically can't restrict Li Yuan now.

Li Yuan strode into a palace, and happened to see the Empress Dowager Li who was teaching the crown prince in the palace.

Li Yuan bowed and saluted: "Minister Li Yuan has seen the Queen Mother and the Prince. ”

The Queen Mother glanced at Li Yuan, and then smiled at the prince and said, "Han'er, go to the Empress Dowager Jing's side to say hello." ”

The crown prince hesitated for a moment and said, "Queen Mother, my son doesn't really want to go there, Empress Dowager Jing seems to have some opinions about ...... son."

When Li Yuan heard this, the corners of his eyes couldn't help jumping slightly.

As we all know, the former queen of Chu Wangyuan, that is, the current Empress Dowager Jing, did not give birth to a son for Chu Wangyuan, so the crown prince will fall to Xiong Han, who was born to the Empress Dowager Li of the Li family.

When Chu Wangyuan was alive, in order to alleviate such an embarrassing situation, Chu Wangyuan had always let Empress Jing be responsible for teaching the prince to be strong, hoping to use this way to make the prince and the three major families of Zhaojingqu represented by Empress Dowager Jing reconcile.

After all, these three major families have been standing since the founding of the Chu State, except for the slightly weaker Qu family, Ling Yin and Shangzhu State, the two most important positions in the Chu State, are held in the hands of the Zhao and Jing families most of the time, which makes the power of the three major families intertwined and spread throughout the Chu State.

It is no exaggeration to say that without the support of the three major families, no monarch of any Chu State would be able to sit firmly in his seat.

But obviously, judging from the prince's words, Chu Wangyuan's painstaking efforts failed.

Being able to make the prince, who has always respected his elders, say such a thing, it is enough to prove that the relationship between Empress Dowager Jing and the crown prince is not as good as Chu Wangyuan hoped, and maybe even the relationship between the two is still very stiff.

Empress Dowager Li's face changed, but a smile immediately appeared again, and said: "Empress Dowager Jing is your elder, so you should have the appearance of a junior, and talking about elders is not what you should do, go ahead." ”

After the crown prince left, Empress Dowager Li retreated left and right, and said softly: "I don't know why my brother came this time?" ”

The two have been growing up with their parents since they were young, and they have a very good relationship between brother and sister.

In the heart of Empress Dowager Li, Li Yuan, the eldest brother, is basically equivalent to his father.

Li Yuan looked left and right, and only after making sure that there was no one did he say in a deep voice: "Queen Mother, the ministers have recently received news, and they may be going to attack the ministers." ”

With the violent death of Chu Wangyuan, Li Yuan, under the guidance of Mao Sui, took advantage of the fact that Jing Yang, the leader of the three major families, was still serving as Huang Xie's deputy general and leading the army, and successfully persuaded the rest of the three major families with Huang Xie's life as a bargaining chip, and finalized the situation of the two empress dowagers being the joint regent.

Li Yuan also took advantage of this to soar into the sky and became the number two person in the Chu State.

But everyone knows that this is only temporary, and the three major families will not tolerate Li Yuan becoming another Chunshenjun Huang Xie, and Li Yuan will not be able to sit still.

So even if Mao Sui doesn't appear, it's only a matter of time before Li Yuan and the three major families go to war.

Of course, Li Yuan can also choose to integrate into the three major families, for example, Jingyang wanted to marry his sister to Li Yuan a while ago.

However, this choice was not accepted by Li Yuan.

In Li Yuan's view, his sister is the queen mother, and the son born to his sister is the future king of Chu.

The crown prince is already eighteen years old this year, and it only takes another two years to be able to perform the crown ceremony, and then take over the authority of governing the country from the hands of the two queen mothers, and become a monarch in the true sense.

All Li Yuan needs to do is to survive these two years.

But at that time, Li Yuan obviously underestimated the strength of the three major families.

It was only a few days after Huang Xie's death, and the power that Li Yuan inherited from Huang Xie was mercilessly attacked by the three major families like thunder.

What's worse is that because Jingyang released the rumor that Li Yuan killed Huang Xie, many of Huang Xie's old subordinates were unwilling to join Li Yuan even if they escaped the previous wave of purges.

In this way, Li Yuan's current situation can be said to be worse, and he has almost no counterattack power in the face of the attacks of the three major families.

This is why Li Yuan entered the palace this time to ask for a meeting.

After listening to Li Yuan's statement, Empress Dowager Li raised a pair of slender eyebrows slightly: "The people of these three major families are really lawless!" ”

Li Yuan sighed and said, "Who said no, the Queen Mother, if the minister falls, then the next person they want to do is probably the Queen Mother and the Prince!" ”

"What?" Empress Dowager Li was shocked, and even her voice began to tremble a little: "What does my brother mean by this?" ”

Li Yuan snorted and said in a very low voice: "Queen Mother, I heard that the three major families are secretly selecting the brothers of the first king recently, and plan to find a helpless person from among them, and then use it to replace the crown prince!" ”

This sentence was like a thunderclap that exploded in the ears of the Empress Dowager Li, making the Empress Dowager Li suddenly lose her face.

As we all know, Chu Wangyuan only has two sons, one is the crown prince Xiong Han, and the other is the son Xiong You.

And these two sons were all born to Empress Dowager Li.

So once Xiong Han is abolished by the three major families, then Xiong Han's younger brother Xiong Yu will definitely not be able to take the throne.

Empress Dowager Li's face turned pale, and after a while, she said, "Brother, are they, do they know about that?" ”

"No!" Li Yuan shook his head very firmly and said, "If they really knew about that matter, then they would have made a mistake a long time ago." But if the three major families are allowed to run rampant like this, even if that matter is not exposed, sooner or later, our brothers and sisters and the crown prince will die without a place to be buried! ”

Empress Dowager Li was a little frightened, and hurriedly said: "Brother, otherwise we won't fight with them, the three major families are ...... after all."

Li Yuan interrupted Empress Dowager Li's words: "Doesn't the Empress Dowager still understand? Now that the matter has come to an end, even if I want to back down, the three major families will not give me, the Queen Mother and the Prince a way to live! ”

Under Li Yuan's repeated intimidation, Empress Dowager Li finally collapsed.

After all, she is just an ordinary woman, not the daughter of a nobleman from a big family like Empress Dowager Jing, and she can only ascend to the position of Empress Dowager by virtue of her own son rather than her own wisdom.

"Brother, what should I do now?" Empress Dowager Li is like a drowning person, wanting to find the last straw from Li Yuan's body.

Li Yuan snorted, and suddenly leaned closer to the Empress Dowager Li.

"Queen Mother, so far, there is only ......"