The time soon came to July, although the imperial court issued edicts several times, but the frequent natural disasters still caused huge criticism to the enthronement of Liu Hong, the son of heaven.

Especially the students of Tai Academy, they often write that there are traitors in the court, which will lead to the current heavenly punishment.

So in this case, Sikong Laiyan, who had just taken office, became a scapegoat and was removed from his official position by the Son of Heaven.

Later, in order to calm the shock, the ministers agreed that the queen should be established as soon as possible. Liu Hong now has nightmares every day, so he naturally agreed.

After the discussion of the clan and the officials, Song Qing of Fufeng Pingling was finally selected as the queen. Although Empress Song's background is not as good as that of Yin, Ma, Dou, and Deng, she can also be regarded as a relative of the emperor.

When Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty, the two sisters of the Pingling Song family were elected to the court at the same time, and were named nobles, and the nobles of the Great Song Dynasty also gave birth to the prince Liu Qing, who was once made the crown prince, and was later deposed as the king of Qinghe.

Empress Song is the great-granddaughter of the two sisters. After the death of the emperor, Qing's eldest son Hu was the emperor. In March of the first year of Jianguang, the ancestor Song nobleman was called Queen Jingyin.

The Song family, who supported the wind and Pingling, therefore had the qualifications to send women into the court. At the same time, on the central meridian, in addition to the court hall where the king discussed politics, there is also the emperor's bedroom, and on the east and west sides of the palace, the palace area and the emperor's bedroom complement each other, and guard the emperor's bedroom like two armpits, so these two palace areas are collectively called the palace, and usually live as concubines.

The Eastern Han Dynasty set up a court order and a Yongxiang order. The court order is in charge of the harem nobles and women, and the Yongxiang order is in charge of the concubines and palace maids and the prison affairs in the palace.

And the canonization of the queen is a very important event, to tell the world, the whole world celebrates, and at the same time there is a formal and solemn ceremony.

The empress was equal to the emperor in etiquette, went out of the same car, entered the same seat, and accepted the congratulations of hundreds of officials on major festivals.

At the same time, the empress has her own official office, which is responsible for managing the harem, and theoretically all the emperor's concubines, palace maids and female officials in the harem are her vassals.

The queen of the Eastern Han Dynasty lived in a palace called Changqiu Palace. Da Changqiu is the head of all the official subordinates of the queen.

Song Qing was the queen, and Cao Jie was naturally promoted to Da Changqiu. At the same time, there were also the three secretaries of the harem, Cheng Huang, the captain of Changle, Hou Lan, the servant of Changle, and Yuan Yu, the Shaofu of Changle.

On this day, Wu Yong accompanied Liu Hong, the Son of Heaven, to enjoy the Houtai Imperial Garden, and after Liu Hong had fun, he said goodbye and left.

I didn't want to just get out of the North Palace, but I was stopped by a voice,

"Wu waits to stay." Wu Yong stopped, found that it was the confessor Ju Shou, and couldn't help but smile and asked, "What is the matter with the adult looking for the kid?" After more than a year of getting along, the two are also familiar with each other, Ju Shou smiled and said, "Is it the queen who asked me to pick you up, and I want to talk to you about something?" ”

"Do you know what the queen is looking for me?" Wu Yong asked suspiciously. He used to go in and out of the North Palace with Liu Hong, the Son of Heaven, and although he had met Empress Song a few times, he was not familiar with her, and he didn't know why she was looking for him today.

"It's a good thing!" Ju Shou smiled. Then, he spoke again: "Today, the queen is feasting on her family, and someone mentioned Wu Shiyu, and the queen sent me to look for you. ”

"Who mentioned me?" Wu Yong asked again. Ju Shou smiled: "Cao Cao, the eldest son of Cao Song, the eldest son of the Great Si Nongqing! ”

"It's him!" Wu Yong exclaimed, and then asked even more suspiciously: "Why did the queen invite her family to the banquet, and Cao Cao would come to the banquet?" ”

"It seems that Wu Shiyu is a little lonely." Ju Shou smiled for a moment, and then explained: "The queen's brother, Song Qi, the Marquis of Qiangqiang, and Cao Zhi, the daughter of Cao Chi in the service, have set up a marriage, and now the Song family of Fufeng Pingling and the Cao family of Peiguo County have become a marriage family. ”

"I see!" Wu Yong exclaimed. I didn't expect Cao Cao and Queen Song to have such a relationship, it is really the biggest in the world, there are no surprises!

The two talked, and after a while, they came to the gate of Changqiu Palace. At this time, Cao Cao and a young man had been waiting at the door for a long time, and when they saw Wu Yong coming, Cao Cao immediately introduced: "Wu Yong, this is Song Qi, the Marquis of Yuqiang." ”

"I've seen the Marquis!" Wu Yong bowed his hand and bowed. At the same time, his eyes were secretly observing each other, and he saw that Song Qi was eighteen or nineteen years old at this time, a few years older than Cao Cao.

"Wu waiter doesn't need to be polite!" Song Qi hurriedly helped Wu Yong up. Then he sighed with emotion: "It is rumored that Wu Shishu is an immortal monarch descending to earth, I used to be a lie, but when I see it today, it is really worthy of its name." ”

"The Marquis has praised it falsely!" Wu Yong was a little embarrassed to be praised.

"Haha, you are not only a friend of Apu, but also a friend of my Song Qi in the future. Friends don't have to be so polite. In the future, I will call you Brother Wu Xian, and you can call me brother. ”

"Then it's better to be respectful than to obey." Wu Yong did not refuse. The other party put down his identity and said everything here, no matter how interesting he is, he just looks down on people.

Wu Yong followed the two into the Changqiu Palace, and found that Cao Song, the great farmer, was also there, so he hurriedly stepped forward to salute.

"I've seen my uncle!"

"Excuse me!" Cao Song laughed, and then pointed to the middle-aged man opposite: "This is the ruling Jinwu just appointed by the Son of Heaven, not his hometown Marquis Song Yu." ”

"I've seen the Marquis!" Wu Yong turned around and bowed. Song Yu twisted his beard and said with a smile: "Your kid's name, I'm like thunder!" ”

"It's all a false name, and it can't be taken seriously! It made the Marquis laugh. Wu Yong said with some embarrassment. Song Yu's face flickered and said, "Since you call Dasi Nongqing your uncle, why are you so estranged from me, do you think that I can't be your elder Wu Shixue?" ”

"Don't dare, don't dare! The kid never thought like this. Wu Yong hurriedly waved his hand.

"In that case, you can also call me uncle in the future!" Song Yu said majestically. When Wu Yong saw this, he had to shout,

"Yes, uncle!" Song Yu smiled at this time,

"Good nephew, sit down, and your queen sister will come out in a moment." As soon as the words fell, I heard the sound of a girl's laughter coming from inside,

"Whose queen sister?" Wu Yong looked towards the place where the voice came from, and saw a young girl in palace costume, surrounded by a large number of maids, slowly walking out from behind the screen.

As soon as she came out, she saw Wu Yong, and couldn't help nodding and laughing: "It turned out that Wu Shi was here!" ”

"I've seen Her Majesty!" Wu Yong hurriedly saluted. At this time, Queen Song was probably thirteen or fourteen, very young and immature.

"Let's get flat!" Queen Song was supported by two palace maids, sat down on the top, and then beckoned everyone to sit down too.

Only then did he instruct the eunuchs and palace maids serving on the left and right: "You go down first, there are some private matters to discuss with your family in this palace." ”

"Yes, Queen!" Everyone didn't dare to disobey, and soon in the hall, there was no one else except Queen Song, Song Yu and his son, Cao Song and his son and Wu Yong.

At this time, Empress Song asked Wu Yong with an embarrassed face: "The Son of Heaven seems to be deliberately alienated from me, I don't know if Wu Shishu can know the reason for this?" Since she was sent to the palace, she often saw Liu Hong, the Son of Heaven, but Liu Hong was lukewarm to anyone, originally she thought that becoming the queen would change the attitude of the Son of Heaven, but she didn't expect the Son of Heaven to be as cold as before.

Wu Yong was stunned, he had accompanied Liu Hong, the Son of Heaven, for more than a year, and he knew a little about his temperament. Before Liu Hong became a son, he was a small landowner in the countryside, and he was used to being free and casual.

Now trapped in this Luoyang Palace, not only do there are many constraints, but even marriage cannot be decided. In fact, the reason why Song Qing was able to be made the queen was the result of the compromise of many forces, including Liu Hong, the son of heaven.

Liu Hong used to be a small citizen in the market, and he was used to seeing laughing and unrestrained civilian women, and he was born with a sense of strangeness to these well-behaved women of the family.

And the queens of the Eastern Han Dynasty were basically monopolized by the big families. The root of all this has to start from the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

When Emperor Guangwu established the Eastern Han Dynasty, because Hebei was still unstable, he was undoubtedly an external force for various prefectures and counties, and the slightest carelessness would make the good situation suddenly reversed.

Under such circumstances, it became a top priority to prevent a collective rebellion caused by the killing of Liu Yang, a powerful representative of the local area.

As a result, measures such as appointing Liu Yang's son as the king of Zhending to maintain the original power of the family, canonizing the daughter of the Guo family, one of the local clans, as the empress, and appointing the son born to him as the crown prince, all aimed at uniting the Hao clan forces in Hebei to consolidate the new regime.

After marrying Guo and establishing him as the emperor, he made great contributions to Guangwu to stabilize Hebei and then establish the foundation of the imperial industry, but with the unification of the world in the thirteenth year of Jianwu, the value of Hebei forces to the empire was greatly reduced, and the contradiction between it and the forces of the Nanyang faction in the heroes gradually increased.

As the emperor's hometown, Nanyang is the foundation of the dynasty, and Nanyang's heroes and relatives are the backbone of Liu Xiu's group and the pillar of the Empire State Building, and the Yin clan is the representative of this force.

In order to consolidate their own power, the Nanyang forces demanded that the Yin clan be the queen of the voice louder and louder. There is a more complicated political contest behind this move, because according to the tradition of the son over the mother, the eldest son from the empress is clearly the first in line to the throne.

Liu Xiu was once in a painful choice, but in the end in the seventeenth year of Jianwu, he complied with the demands of the Nanyang forces to abolish Empress Guo and replace him with the Yin clan, and two years later set up Liu Zhuang, the eldest son of the Yin clan, as the crown prince.

Out of compromise with the power of the wealthy clans rather than the expression of personal feelings, Emperor Guangwu canonized and replaced his empress.

This act of compromise in the Founding Emperor seems to have become a standard, and it has been repeated again and again in the subsequent imperial journeys.

In the first year of Yangjia, the eighteen-year-old Emperor Shun of Han also fell into the entanglement of the post-establishment period. There are four favored nobles, and Emperor Shun prefers the talented and good-looking Dou family, but it is Liang Yan, the daughter of Liang Shang, who has a higher voice.

In order to gain the last chance to go, Emperor Shun even proposed to use the absurd method of drawing lots to decide the candidates.

The ministers led by Hu Guang categorically rejected this proposal, and after writing a letter requesting Li Liang Yan in the name of the "Spring and Autumn" classics, the helpless Emperor Shun finally accepted the request of the ministers.

In this post-establishment turmoil, the victory of the Liang clan depends on the family forces behind it, the most important of which is the support of the Fan family and the Yin family.

In contrast, although the Dou clan also made more guests, the overall power was still relatively weak. During the reign of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, Liu Zhi favored Tian Sheng, a girl from humble background, and tried to establish Tian as the queen.

Again, however, this proposal was met with even more fierce opposition from the ministers who favored it. Chen Fan wrote many times to express his opposition on the grounds that the Dou family was good and the Tian family was humble

The words "contention" describe the stalemate at the time. Another minister, Ying Feng, did not hesitate to use the example of King Xiang of Zhou who married Di Nu as a concubine and was invaded, and Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty took Zhao Feiyan and cut off his children and grandchildren as an example to advise the emperor.

Under such circumstances, the helpless Emperor Huan had no choice but to canonize Dou Miao, the daughter of the family favored by the ministers, as the new queen.

However, as a result, he became even more indifferent to the Dou family, and even rarely patronized the queen's bedroom, which eventually led to the tragedy of the Dou family executing Tian immediately after becoming the queen mother.

Through the above cases, a fact is highlighted: the concubines of the Eastern Han Dynasty imperial family headed by the queen are basically controlled by the wealthy families - especially the Yin, Dou, Deng, and Liang families, and the abolition of the queen is a power game between these wealthy families.

In addition, these wealthy families themselves are the families of local magnates, and becoming relatives only further increases their power, and their situation is fundamentally different from that of the Western Han Dynasty such as Wei Qing and Huo Quzhi.

Therefore, to a large extent, the foreign relatives of the Eastern Han Dynasty are no longer simple dependents of imperial power, but more of a manifestation of the power of the wealthy clan in politics.

Liu Hong, the son of heaven, is now close to the eunuchs and suppresses the family, so he is also indifferent to many women in the palace, and it is not just for Queen Song.

Of course, he can't say these words in front of Song Yuming, which is quite suspected of sowing discord. Thinking of this, Wu Yong couldn't help but think of Queen Song's miserable fate in the future.

So he opened his mouth and suggested: "The Son of Heaven likes women with a breath of life, and the queen can try to change herself a little." ”