After meeting with Bi Denuo and others, Emperor Chongzhen dismissed the ministers and civil and military attendants around him, and only took a few chamberlains to Kunning Palace.

When it was left in the afterlife, on the sixth day of the new year, the New Year was over.

However, in the Ming Dynasty more than 300 years ago, especially in the imperial palace, on the sixth day of the first lunar month, the atmosphere of the New Year did not decrease slightly.

In the evening, the streets in front of the various palace groups are still lit up, and the young palace ladies are bare walking under the palace walls between the palace gates, and they are busy with their work under the instructions of the ladies and the female officials who are serving each other.

The emperor once said that every year on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, during the Lantern Festival, a blind date will be arranged for the female officials and palace maids who have reached the age and meet the requirements.

Although so far, whether it is the first town of the Guards, the second town of the Guards, and the 3,000 battalions of the three battalions of the Beijing Division, where the young officers are concentrated, are still fighting outside the country under the emperor's order, and the young officers who signed up to participate in the meeting are not as many as last year, nor are they as high as those who came last year, but seeing that the day is about to come, the female officials and palace maids in the palace who are willing to marry themselves still can't hold back the little excitement in their hearts.

Even with whatever you do, it's much more lively and light.

Although the first and second towns of the Guards are not there, the three guards of the pro-army around the emperor are all there!

Moreover, the emperor also listened to the suggestion of the queen mother, and issued a special decree to allow those cadets who are still studying in the lecture hall and are destined to become officers in the future to also participate in the Queqiao Meeting.

Therefore, although the number of participants this year is not as high as last year, the quality is higher than last year!

Although the emperor said in the special decree that although the students of the martial arts hall can participate in the Queqiao meeting outside the Huangji Gate of the Lantern Festival, they must be allowed to get married after graduating from the martial arts hall.

But for these palace ladies and maids, if they really have to marry the young ladies in the martial arts hall, who cares about waiting for an extra year or two?

For these palace maids, after having this incident as an expectation in their lives today, the days of the palace no longer feel so boring and difficult.

This is more than the fact that the emperor gives the palace ladies a little monthly money every year, which makes them feel that their lives are full of hope.

At the same time, the status of the female officials in the harem has also improved accordingly, and among the attendants around the queen and the concubines of the harem, the status of the eunuchs has begun to decline.

The emperor's personal preferences directly affected the ecology of the palace.

Since Emperor Chongzhen didn't like eunuchs to serve and did not allow new eunuchs to be added to the Forbidden City, the status of eunuchs in the palace also declined invisibly.

It is said that eunuchs have no family, no descendants, and they have no other way out than to be loyal to the emperor.

This is pure nonsense.

Eunuchs are human beings after all, and with or without descendants, it is impossible for him to erase the good and evil sides of human nature.

All the traits that a normal person could have, they could have, and only more extreme.

For the current Emperor Chongzhen, except for the eunuchs who have passed the test of history, although it cannot be said that everything else cannot be trusted, but as long as he has other choices, he will resolutely not give full trust to the eunuch species.

If a person can enter the palace and enter the emperor's side by castrating himself, then once such a person has seized power, his behavior is almost unpredictable.

Just like in the Spring and Autumn Period, the character named Yi Ya under Qi Huan Gong could be so ruthless that he could make his own son into a delicacy and present it to Qi Huan Gong to express his loyalty, is such a person really credible?

Qi Huangong was moved enough at the time, and later reused Yi Ya, but when Qi Huan Gong fell ill once, Yi Ya colluded with one of Qi Huan Gong's sons to make a mess, blocked Qi Huan Gong in the palace, and starved to death.

Is it hard to understand the truth contained in this story?

If a man can kill his own son, cook it and make it a meal for another person, is there anything else that he can't do?

The same can be said for eunuchs.

It is precisely because they have no children and grandchildren that they are the kind of people who really never worry about losing their children if they do something bad.

Are there good people in this kind of people? Of course.

But the chance of a white-eyed wolf in such a person is much greater.

Besides, Emperor Chongzhen is not unavailable now, so why do you have to reuse eunuchs?

Now that it has been streamlined again and again, in addition to the Jinyi Guard, Tiance Guard, and Yulin Guard, the three guards and soldiers of the pro-army who are on duty in the palace forbidden, the scale of eunuchs and palace maids alone is still as many as more than 20,000.

And among them, eunuchs are the mainstay, and the eunuchs alone are more than seventy percent.

The palace maids are okay to say, if the current palace maids have not been favored by the emperor, they will be allowed to leave the palace and start a family after serving for a few years, and there is a relatively fast flow process, so what about the eunuchs?

As soon as these people enter the palace, they will almost have to live in the palace for the rest of their lives.

And the current Emperor Chongzhen's family is just him, plus a queen and four concubines, and a few other servants.

Even if you count the children in the womb of the queen and Yi Concubine, there are only about a dozen people, do you need more than 20,000 eunuchs and palace maids to serve and serve?!

In particular, more than seventy percent of the eunuchs, except for some of the higher ranks, who have been trained in the palace for many years of struggle and can be used by Emperor Chongzhen, the vast majority of the rest are pure burdens.

Nowadays, the daily consumption in the palace is as high as 50,000 Chongzhen silver yuan, how much can Emperor Chongzhen and his concubines have?

Most of them were consumed by the twenty-four eunuchs in the palace and the eunuchs to whom they belonged.

That is, because now Emperor Chongzhen's inner money and the hands of the harem concubines are gradually no longer short of money, otherwise, according to Emperor Chongzhen's own thoughts, the eunuchs in the palace will be reduced by 10,000 is still too much!

Of course, these thoughts he can't talk to anyone yet.

As the saying goes, if the king is not secret, he will lose his ministers, and if the ministers are not secret, he will lose his life, and the problem of reducing eunuchs is as dangerous as reducing the army.

After receiving this batch of foreign envoys who were eager to see, and Qiang Gang arbitrarily handled those joint and horizontal foreign affairs, Emperor Chongzhen returned to the inner palace again, accompanied the queen every day, cooperated with other concubines, and now has become the focus of the care of Yi Concubine, life is happy.

On the night of the twelfth day of the first month of the third year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen, who accompanied Empress Zhou to sleep peacefully in Kunning Palace, was woken up by Wang Chengen himself.

Yi Concubine, who has been in Chuxiu Palace, has been raising her baby with peace of mind and waiting to give birth, which is a little unexpected, but she gave birth to Emperor Chongzhen's first child very smoothly!

It is a bit surprising because the imperial doctors of the Tai Hospital judged that the expected date of delivery was after the Lantern Festival, and now it is a few days earlier, so that the emperor himself could not appear at the scene at the first time.

Therefore, although Emperor Chongzhen attaches great importance to this time, from the beginning of the first month, he arranged a bunch of imperial doctors, stable women, maids, and palace maids to go to Chuxiu Palace to wait for him, but he did not personally attend the birth.

Of course, in this era, the emperor cannot appear on such an occasion, but for the current Emperor Chongzhen, if he has to appear on the scene, who can stop him?

Of course, he himself wanted to appear on the scene, because whether it was a boy or a girl, after all, he was the first child after he came to this era and this world, how could he not attach great importance to it?

So after Wang Chengen woke him up, Emperor Chongzhen heard that Yi Concubine Ulan Tuya was born, on the one hand, he was overjoyed, and on the other hand, he couldn't wait to go to Chuxiu Palace when he was fully dressed.

Emperor Chongzhen was overjoyed and panicked to go to Chuxiu Palace, but he forgot to ask whether the child born to Concubine Yi was male or female, and finally Queen Zhou, who had always cared about this matter, asked the question she wanted to know the most through the curtains around the imperial bed.

When Wang Chengen knelt on the ground and answered the queen's question, even the queen Zhou also called the female officials who served him in the Kunning Palace, and changed the depression he had always been, happily changed into the queen's regular clothes, and accompanied the elated Emperor Chongzhen to Chuxiu Palace together.

Because Wang Chengen's answer was: "Congratulations to the emperor!" Congratulations! Yi Concubine has added an eldest princess to the emperor and Niangniang! Mother and daughter are safe! ”