Li House.

"Brother Yu, I've come back from staring at people in Gumutang, and someone has bought the model of the ship we consigned there." When Li Hongyu was reading books in the study to prepare for the exam, Qin Yue walked in with a smile and told him good news.

"Looks like we're in luck." Li Hongyu smiled slightly when he heard this, and put down the book in his hand, originally he thought that he would have to wait a few days for the model of the three-masted sailing ship to be sold, but he didn't expect it to be bought so soon.

"Brother Yu, do you know who the buyer is?" Qin Yue stepped forward and poured Li Hongyu a cup of hot tea and brought it over, and asked with a smile.

The reason why this was so was because Li Hongyuan asked her to send someone to Gumutang to keep an eye on it to see if anyone had bought the model of the three-masted sailing ship, but she did not let anyone follow the buyer, so Qin Yue felt that Li Hongyu knew the identity of the seller, as if the three-masted sailing ship model was deliberately prepared for the other party.

"If I'm not mistaken, the final buyer should be the imperial grandson!" Li Hongyu smiled slightly when he heard this, looked at Qin Yue and said, since Qin Yue chose to stay by his side, of course he would not hide Qin Yue's case.

"The Emperor...... The emperor's grandson? Qin Yue was stunned for a moment, a look of surprise appeared in her eyes, no matter what, she would never have thought that Li Hongyu's target would be the imperial grandson.

In Qin Yue's view, the imperial grandson is the future prince of the country, and he is a high-ranking existence of the Ming Dynasty, and for ordinary people like them, they can only look up and not get close to them.

And Li Hongyu is now going to calculate the emperor's grandson, which really surprised Qin Yue, he never imagined that Li Hongyu's courage was so big.

The crown prince is referred to as "crown prince", and the imperial grandson is referred to as "imperial grandson", and generally speaking, only after the death of the crown prince will the emperor canonize the crown prince's son as the imperial grandson, but sometimes the emperor will also ******** heir when the crown prince is established

In other words, the crown prince and the crown prince are both princes of the country, but the order of succession to the throne is different, and the crown prince can only succeed to the throne after the death of the crown prince.

As the saying goes, there are no two days, the prince is the future emperor, like the rising sun, so the emperors of all dynasties rarely canonized the emperor's grandson, it is worth mentioning that the Ming Dynasty has set up three emperors' grandsons.

The first time related to Emperor Hongwu, Emperor Hongwu's crown prince Zhu Biao died young, he did not choose someone from the prince's brothers to inherit the throne, but canonized Zhu Biao's son Zhu Yunwen as the emperor's grandson, making Zhu Yunwen the later Emperor Jianwen, and also made it difficult for Emperor Yongle to raise troops.

The second time was related to the Yongle Emperor, who canonized Zhu Gaochi's son Zhu Zhanji as the emperor's grandson while the crown prince Zhu Gaochi was alive, making Zhu Zhanji the later Xuande Emperor.

The third time is related to the Wanli Emperor, who canonized Zhu Changluo's son Zhu Youxiao as the emperor's grandson under the condition that the crown prince Zhu Changluo was established, making Zhu Youxiao the later Emperor of the Apocalypse.

It can be seen that the three emperors of the Ming Dynasty who canonized the emperor's grandson were all sons of heaven who held great power and coerced civil and military officials, so that they could identify successors from generation to generation, and the civil and military officials of the imperial court did not dare to disobey.

Needless to say, Emperor Hongwu and Emperor Yongle are not as good as the two ancestors, although the Wanli Emperor is not as good as the two ancestors, but he has not been in the court for 28 years, and the Ming Dynasty is operating normally, and the inner court, the cabinet and the six ministries are in a delicate balance of power, and they have played the famous three major campaigns, so they are naturally not idle.

As for the remarks that Emperor Wanli was slack in government affairs and the Ming Dynasty relied on the support of the civil official group, it was purely a gold paste on the faces of the literati by later generations of scholars, if the Wanli Emperor really ignored government affairs and handed over the power to the inner court celebrants, those civil officials in the court would have been cleaned up by the eunuchs of the ceremonial eunuchs.

Throughout the Wanli Dynasty, there was no eunuch who was hated by later generations of scholars, which shows that the power of the country at that time was actually in the hands of Emperor Wanli.

Therefore, Li Hongyu did not believe that the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were as good as recorded in the history books, dedicated to the public, the country and the people, and did not believe that the eunuchs who were attacked by the history books were really mad and so bad that they were useless.

In his view, the struggle between eunuchs and civil officials was actually a game between monarchy and vassal.

Of course, whether it is a eunuch or a civil official, as long as he controls the power, his selfish desires will inevitably swell, so it is also a normal phenomenon for evildoers to appear, and there are those who oppress good people among eunuchs and civil officials.

It is worth mentioning that among the three princes of the Ming Dynasty who were ******** by their father as the heir to the throne, in addition to Zhu Biao, who was deeply loved by Emperor Hongwu, Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Changluo were not liked by his father, Emperor Yongle liked his other son Zhu Gaoxu, King of Han, and Emperor Wanli liked Zhu Changxun, King of Fu.

This made Zhu Gaoxu later rebel for the throne, but was exterminated by Emperor Xuande with his army, known as the "Han Rebellion".

And Zhu Changxun triggered the famous "national capital dispute" in the Wanli period, and the ministers of the court and the central government fought over whether Zhu Changluo, the eldest son of the palace maid, or Zhu Changxun, the third son of the imperial concubine, whose mother was the imperial concubine, was the crown prince.

Because the queen had no children, she wanted the queen mother and many ministers to follow the principle of "establishing a successor and establishing a long line" to canonize Zhu Changluo as the crown prince, but the Wanli Emperor hoped to establish Zhu Changxun as the crown prince.

The crown prince is the foundation of the country, so the normal turmoil was called the "national capital dispute" by later generations, which lasted for fifteen years, and finally Zhu Changluo was made the prince.

"Brother Yu, the imperial grandson is well-informed, will he like that ship?"

After the initial shock, Qin Yue quickly came back to her senses, suppressed her excitement and asked with some concern, if Zhu Youxiao didn't like it, then Li Hongyu's hard work would not be in vain!

"The imperial grandson loves woodwork, and that three-masted sailing ship is well-made, novel and unique, and will definitely win the favor of the imperial grandson." Seeing that Qin Yue was a little worried, Li Hongyu smiled slightly and said comfortingly.

Because Zhu Youxiao is only the grandson of the emperor now, and he is young, the outside world does not know much about him, and even if those powerful people in the court pay attention to it, they only pay attention to Zhu Changluo, the prince, after all, Zhu Changluo is now in the prime of life, and it may be twenty or thirty years before Zhu Youxiao succeeds to the throne.

At this time, except for Li Hongyu, no one knew that Zhu Changluo died after only one month as emperor after succeeding to the throne, otherwise those civil and military ministers in the court would definitely come to befriend Zhu Youxiao.

Looking at Li Hongyu with a bamboo in his chest, Qin Yue felt a little surprised at first, and didn't know when Li Hongyu learned that Zhu Youxiao liked woodware, but then remembered something, and a happy smile couldn't help but appear on the corner of his mouth.

Qin Yue remembered very well that Li Hongyu inexplicably learned the carpenter's craft when he was in Baihe Town, she thought that Li Hongyu was not doing his job properly and was discouraged by his playthings, but now it seems that Li Hongyu found out the details of Zhu Youxiao at that time, otherwise how could Haohao learn the carpenter's craft?

Forbidden City, Qingning Palace.

Qingning Palace is the east palace where the prince of the Ming Dynasty lived, and was renamed Ciqing Palace in the last year of the Apocalypse, where Zhu Changluo, the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, lived, in addition to Zhu Changluo's concubines and the imperial grandson Zhu Youxiao, the fifth son Zhu Youzhen.

At this moment, in the courtyard in a corner of Qingning Palace, a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy wearing a bright yellow three-clawed python dragon robe commanded several carpenters to build wooden tools in a room, and wooden bowls, wooden chickens and other utensils were placed on the table next to him.

Beside the young man, a boy of six or seven years old, dressed in a scarlet three-clawed python robe, ate the pastries in his hand with relish, while watching the carpenters busy with interest.

In the entire imperial family of the Ming Empire, only the emperor, the crown prince, and the imperial grandson can use bright yellow cloth, and the rest of the princes, county kings and other royal families can only use vermilion or bright blue cloth.

The so-called python dragon is the same as the dragon in appearance, except that the dragon has five claws and the python dragon has four claws, that is, people usually say that the five claws are dragons and the four claws are pythons.

Among them, the dragon robe can only be worn by the emperor, and the crown prince and other royal families can only wear the python dragon robe to show the difference.

Obviously, this twelve or thirteen-year-old boy is Zhu Youxiao, the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, and the six or seven-year-old boy next to him is naturally Zhu Youzhen.

Zhu Changluo has a total of seven sons, but except for Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youzhen, the rest of the five sons all died young, which can be described as thin.

Just as Zhu Youxiao was commanding the carpenters with great interest, a middle-aged eunuch with a thin figure walked into the room quickly, followed by two chamberlains carrying an object covered in red silk cloth.

"Taisun, Zhang Baihu found a novel gadget in Liulichang and dedicated it to Taisun." The middle-aged eunuch came to Zhu Youxiao's side and bowed down with a smile.

"Otomo, what is this?" Hearing this, Zhu Youxiao glanced at the object covered with red silk cloth that was placed on the table by the two chamberlains, and asked the middle-aged eunuch with some curiosity.

The eunuch who can be called "big companion" by Zhu Youxiao, then naturally it is the famous Wei Zhongxian in history, because Wei Zhongxian has served Zhu Youxiao since childhood, so there is a deep relationship between the two, otherwise Zhu Youxiao would not call him "big companion".

"Taisun, please look!" Wei Zhongxian smiled slightly when he heard this, stretched out his hand and lifted the red silk cloth, and the model of the three-masted sailing ship suddenly appeared in front of Zhu Youxiao.

"Otomo, this ship is so weird!" Zhu Youxiao's eyes suddenly lit up, and he stepped forward with a happy face and stretched out his hand to stroke the model of the three-masted sailing ship, although he also had many models of river boats and sea boats, but it was the first time he had seen such a novel style.

"Hui Taisun, according to the shopkeeper of Gumutang, this ship is called 'Three-masted Sailing Boat', which was made by a man who went to Beijing to take the exam and put it on his consignment." Wei Zhongxian stood aside with a bow, explaining with a smile.

"Three-masted galleon?" Zhu Youxiao couldn't help but bow his head slightly, this model ship with a novel style has three masts for hanging sails, but it is not a three-masted sailing ship.

"Otomo, do you know where these three-masted galleons are?" After reaching out and stroking the wooden sails on the boat, Zhu Youxiao asked with interest.

"Hui Taisun, the old slave has never seen such a strange-looking ship before, it must not be an object of our Ming Dynasty, and I don't know if someone made it up."

Wei Zhongxian shook his head when he heard this, the shopkeeper Liu of Gumutang only knew the name of the three-masted sailing ship, but the origin was not clear.

"Otomo, ask the person who built this ship to see where it came from." Zhu Youxiao's face couldn't help but show a look of disappointment, and then he asked.

"Don't worry, the old slave will do it."

Wei Zhongxian smiled when he heard this, bowed down and retreated, it seems that Zhang Hu's errand this time was done well, and the three-masted sailing ship he offered was very popular with Zhu Youxiao.

In his opinion, the immediate priority is to find out the maker of this three-masted sailing ship, Zhu Youxiao must be curious about this person's carpentry skills, after all, Zhu Youxiao is the emperor's grandson is well-informed, ordinary woodwork is difficult to enter his eyes, only those novel woodwork can arouse his interest.

Zhang Hu is the "Zhang Ye" who bought this three-masted sailing ship model from Gumutang, a hundred households of Jinyiwei, responsible for protecting the safety of Qingning Palace, and has close contacts with Wei Zhongxian, specifically looking for those high-end wooden objects for Zhu Youxiao outside the palace.