The smoke and dust raised by the horses' hooves had gradually dispersed.

A deep and shallow gray haze outlines the majestic outline of the Daliang Palace. Downstairs, a woman with white hair holding a longbow is independent of the palace gate, and her dark crown dress hunts in the wind.

The long steps of white marble rolled like white waves, spreading all the way from under the woman's feet, and at the end of the tide, there was a black pressure crowding the rebels on the Chengtiantai.

Half of them had never been armoured, and the weapons in their hands were also varied, except for the hundreds of stubborn elite horsemen under the command of the lieutenant marshal, the rest were all well-known commoners, and many of them even had vegetables on their faces, apparently homeless people who had been living in hunger not long ago.

This is a rabble, as evidenced by the shouts and cries coming from behind the palace walls.

However, it was such a so-called "righteous army" composed of homeless people, peasants, small traders and ordinary people who defeated the Great Liang Protector Army, which was known as "300,000 iron horsemen sweeping the eight famines" and spending a huge amount of money every year.

Since the army was raised in the northwest border, the rebels have been like a bamboo, and it took less than half a year to enter the imperial city.

The forbidden army of the imperial city has retreated, the generals are nowhere to be found, the palace attendants are scattered in a hurry, and the magnificent palace is burning with thick smoke.

Am I ...... Really wrong?

Wei Shu's hand trembled slightly, and the scattered white hair sometimes obscured her vision.

In a flash, more than 40 years of life are like a long tide, unexpectedly passing in front of you.

She was originally the eldest daughter of King Wei, young and sensitive, literate at the age of one, able to write at the age of five, bow at the age of seven, and follow her father to the Central Plains at the age of fifteen.

At that time, the country was out of order, the princes had long since disappeared, the Central Plains was divided by the Seven Kingdoms, and the former Wei Hou had already proclaimed himself king. By the time of Wei Shu's father, this war had lasted for more than 200 years, and all countries were in dispute, and the world was full of heroes, and everyone wanted to become the overlord of the country.

King Wei, who is in the prime of life, also has this ambition.

It's just that although there are many uncles and brothers in the Wei clan, apart from Wei Shu, the only child born by his father is the younger brother who is less than a month old.

At this point of employing people, the young Wei Shu took on the heavy responsibility of managing the army's heavy grain and grass.

She is the only person who is safe to hand over his back to King Wei. They not only have a connected bloodline, but also close relatives who are both prosperous and loss-oriented.

On the day of the imminent conquest, Wei Shu passed four years, and the things that were not more or less humane to outsiders were all dissipated in the boundless war and the dust of the conquest.

At the age of nineteen, Wei Guo and Chu State competed, Wei Guo was weak, and the decline began to appear.

In that year, Wei Shu put down the bow and arrow, picked up the embroidery needle, prepared the wedding dress for herself, and as the most favored princess of the country, she took a city in the country as a wedding gift, held the national letter, took the canopy, married into the Liang country, and became the second queen of the king of Liang.

Since then, Liang Wei has formed alliances and relied on each other, and has survived the most difficult years for each other.

Three years later, King Liang suddenly turned his head without warning and raised troops to defend the army, which coincided with the fact that King Wei was seriously ill, his young son was weak, and the ministers had their own thoughts. However, in just a few days, the Wei Kingdom was destroyed, and the Wei royal family was slaughtered.

On the eve of the change, Wei Shu, who was secretly imprisoned in the dormitory, escaped with the help of her cronies, but her children and the people of the nearly 100 palaces all died in a sudden fire.

She will never forget that night.

The sky-high flames of Dongming Hall reflected most of the sky, and her whole person seemed to be burned to ashes by this firelight.

She hurts, she regrets, she hates.

But she didn't cry.

The fire of the tarsal cone boiled her heart and scorched her soul, so that she would never shed a single tear for the rest of her life.

King Liang buried the mother and son of the queen of Wei who "died in the fire", and the remains in the royal tomb were surrounded by pearl shell treasures, enjoying the glory after death.

Empress Wei is indeed dead.

Those who survived were the relics of the Patriotic Nation.

The road to escape was full of hardships and dangers, and King Liang sent hundreds of private guards to launch an endless pursuit of Wei Shu and his party.

What this monarch is worried about is not Wei Shu, the former queen of the dead country, what he is worried about is that Wei Shu did not flee alone.

If you can escape one, you may not be able to escape a few more, such as ...... Those two children with Wei's blood flowing through them?

It is true that there are indeed two children's bones in the ruins of the Dongming Palace, but who can guarantee that the burned corpses beyond recognition are the main ones?

Even if this possibility is so small that it can be completely ignored, King Liang is not at ease.

He had to see the fugitives die before he could rest easy.

Wei Shu has been married to him for several years, and she guessed his thoughts.

If this is the case, then what is the intention of this good husband?

So, one night not long after the escape, Wei Shu wore light makeup and lured her guard centurion to be her guest of honor.

The young and handsome centurion had been by Wei Shu's side since she was married, and she knew that he had always secretly admired her.

Nine months later, Wei Shu gave birth to a son on the way to escape, a boy with eyebrows and eyes that resembled her. Because she was often frightened during pregnancy, the child was born a little weak, cowardly and kind-hearted. Whenever she looked at him, Wei Shu would always think of the two poor children who died in the fire, and often fantasize that they were still alive, laughing and playing beside her.

Time passed slowly in this chase and escape, and one day two years later, the pursuers suddenly disappeared. Wei Shu later learned that half a month ago, King Liang almost died under the knife of the assassins of Wu State.

With the continuous expansion of the territory of the Liang State, more and more countries were annexed by the King of Liang, and some people with lofty ideals gathered together to secretly assassinate the driver, and the capital of the Liang State did not know how many assassins were mixed in.

In order to protect his own safety, King Liang had to transfer back the most loyal personal guard to replace the previous personal guard, and the pursuit of Wei Shu was also put on hold.

Obviously, in the grand cause of unifying the Central Plains and the speculation of chasing after the wind and shadows, he chose the former.

Wei Shu thought it was a wise move. After all, there were not many people left around her at that time, and the young centurion had died in a siege.

She settled in a small town in the North.

When the rumors calmed down a little, she sent her remaining men to trace back along the escape route, and eliminated the people who knew about it one by one.

Since then, the Jiao'er under her knees is a child who has reached the age of four, and she is the blood of King Liang, but she was born thinner and smaller, and she can't see it out.

Wei Shu learned to wait.

Quietly, patiently, and for a long time, like a cicada stinging in the ground, just waiting for the day when the light will appear, and it will hiss for the whole season.

At the age of twenty-eight, King Liang finally annexed the last country and completed his great cause of unification.

In the autumn of that year, the first emperor of the ages issued a letter to heaven and earth on the top of Mount Tai, proclaiming himself the emperor of Yuan, showing his ambition to be the only one in the world throughout the ages.

It's a pity, the sky is stingy.

The eloquent Emperor Liang Yuan died in an assassination attempt less than half a year after he ascended the throne.

At that time, Wang Jia was still outside Beijing, and the accompanying ministers did not dare to make a noise, only saying that Emperor Yuan was seriously injured, and it was not until he returned to Beijing to stabilize the court that the news of the emperor's death was announced.

During the month-long period of state mourning, the ministers who supported the emperor's eldest son and the ministers who supported the emperor's second son were at loggerheads, and no one could convince anyone.

Emperor Liang Yuan had two sons under his knees, and the eldest son was born to the first queen. Because of the wind when he was young, this prince fell into dementia, and he looked like an ordinary person, but when he got sick, he looked like a mad demon, and he didn't even know people;

The second son of the emperor was born of Emperor Yuan's favorite concubine, and his body was healthy, but he had a perverse temperament, cruelty and killing, and tried to fight with people in the street, and the slaves in the family broke their hands and feet, and the people were afraid of him like a tiger.

The power of two evils is not trivial. Long is not long, virtuous is not virtuous, and all the ministers are worried. A kingdom shall not be without a king for a day. Now the national funeral is still self-contained, and when the national funeral expires, someone will always sit on that throne, and the two princes do not seem to have the appearance of a bright monarch.

At this time, someone suddenly said, "The queen is not dead, it seems to be lurking in the wilderness with his son."

There was a violent earthquake in the court. Only then did the ministers remember that when King Liang destroyed Wei, Queen Wei took a pair of children to self-immolate in Dongming Hall in grief. After the incident, King Liang hurriedly buried the mother and son, and even the suspension of the spirit was spared. Now that I think about it, it's a bit strange.

Naturally, the proponents of the eldest son of the emperor and the second son of the emperor all denounced this as statelessness, but more courtiers thought that there must be a reason for the incident, and it was not difficult to check it.

And more importantly, compared to two adult princes, a young emperor is obviously a better choice, at least children will not go crazy or kill people at every turn, and it is easier to teach.

The only problem is that the young emperor has the blood of the Wei family in his body, and the Wei family and the king of Liang have the hatred of destroying the clan and the country, so what?

In fact, it's not difficult, if you go to the mother and keep the child, won't everything be fine?

The discussion was decided, and the ministers immediately started the matter, and soon got the testimony of Emperor Yuan's private guard, and the squire Shulang, who wrote the secret order to pursue and kill, also appeared to testify, and King Liang's two-year pursuit of the queen also proved that the third son of the emperor was still alive.

So, the ministers led by the left minister and the general of the protector immediately set off and came to the small northern city and saw the "three princes" who looked like Wei Shu. And when Wei Shu appeared, everyone couldn't help but be amazed.

There are many beauties in the defense of the country, and everyone also knows the beauty of the queen of the guard. When she first entered the Liang Palace, she was imitated by the palace because of her extraordinary beauty, and all the beauties were beautiful in the makeup and clothing of the queen of the guard, among which the "Wei Bun" was the most famous.

No one thought that her years of rural life had never worn out the color of beauty, but instead added a charm to her.

That night, Zuo Xiang bowed down under the beauty's pomegranate skirt. In a few days, the Protector General followed in his footsteps.

When the group returned to the capital, no one mentioned the saying of "going to the mother and leaving the child", and the words of "weak women are unbearable" and "killing mothers are ominous" gradually spread.

Soon after, it was the most powerful supporter of the second son of the emperor, the right prime minister, who also turned against each other and stood firmly beside the third son of the emperor, and Da Sikong was even more heartbroken and shouted in the court, "My territory of the Great Liang Thousands of Miles cannot accommodate a single female stream", and it was so much that the officials were ashamed.

However, in the end, it was the third son of the emperor who wept in front of several Situ and asked: "I have no father, will I have no mother?" ”

Since then, no one has mentioned the matter of the Wei bloodline.

The young emperor ascended the throne, later called Xizong, and Wei Shu was respected as the queen mother and entered the Weiyang Palace.

She was twenty-nine years old.

Returning to the palace after seven years, things are different and the scenery is very easy, and even Wei Shu himself seems to have changed from head to toe.

Every day in the next day, for Wei Shu, it was like an abyss.

She has too many secrets, the biggest of which is a sharp blade hanging over her head, and she doesn't know when it will fall. She was worried about this matter every day, and she was planning to make bigger plans every day.

A year later, she finally won the opportunity to assist the young emperor in his own government, and appeared at the court meeting openly.

She seized this opportunity tightly, arranged manpower little by little, raised private soldiers, and made friends with the various gate lords, and gradually weaved a batch of wings.

By the time she was thirty-five years old, half of the court of the Great Liang was already in her hands, the fluttering wide sleeves of the Queen Mother were almost everywhere, and many ministers had begun to get used to the splendid curtain next to the throne of the Son of Heaven.

I don't know when the emperor's edicts have not been counted, and only the edict stamped with the Empress Dowager's treasure seal, or the will issued by the Empress Dowager herself, can be successfully implemented.

At this point, it is almost a foregone conclusion that mother and son will turn against each other.

No emperor is willing to be swept away—even if the one who does it is his own mother. In the same way, no Avenger will stop before the end.

Mother and son cannibalism, can it be said lightly that the word win or lose? And the Xuanli Imperial City covered all the blood, and what outsiders saw in the eyes of outsiders was that the emperor was weak and unfortunately died, and the Queen Mother had to be pro-government under grief, which stabilized the court, and the Great Liang Dynasty was still singing and dancing.

From the queen mother to the emperor, it is an endless road, and it is also the most difficult and painful road that Wei Shu has walked in her life.

For those who deceived her as a woman and always thought that it was easy to snatch back the throne from her, Wei Shu did not hesitate to give them a skinning and filling the grass, and punishing the nine clans.

Blood gradually stained his hands, and the winding river of blood flooded every inch of land under the throne.

It's not that I'm not unfazed.

When there is no one at night, the overwhelming blood will always soak in dreams, and Wei Shu, who sits up in shock, will also be surprised that the strange and cold woman in the mirror is herself.

When did she become like this?

Where did the gentle and beautiful Jiangnan girl go?

However, such ups and downs are only for a moment. That night of fire and blood many years ago smoothed everything and achieved everything.

It is very fair to give me the hatred of the country and the family, and I take away the country. Isn't it?

At the age of forty, Wei Shu finally completed the enthronement ceremony, and sacrificed to heaven and earth on the top of Mount Tai, and was the third emperor of the Liang Dynasty.

The busy state affairs made Wei Shu have gray hair many years ago, and now that she is older, and she has countless things on her mind, her suspicion is becoming more and more serious.

Gradually, her eyes began to condense on the court for a long time, condensed in those sneaky, inconsistent so-called loyal ministers, her full spirit is also shrouded in the capital, always firmly believe that the world will be peaceful if the feet of the world are stable and the court is solid.

Now she finally knows that the court is not the same as the country.

But if that's the case, then who will tell her, what is the country? What is the world?

"Boom—"

The thunder burst out, and Wei Shu's heart trembled slightly.

Lead clouds pressed the sky very low, and heavy rain was coming, and the light became darker and darker, as if night was falling.

Wei Shu opened his eyes wide, looking at the sword forest and gun array under the long steps of white marble, and looked at the faces of the silent people.

Why did you rebel? Why did you choose such a rebellious path? Why would you rather fight to the death than live under my rule?

Wei Shu couldn't figure it out.

Could it be because of natural disasters for many years? Is it because of the gods who have been in drought for a long time and have no rain? But she clearly ordered people to set up altars to pray for rain, and sent down an edict against herself, and also reduced taxes in various places, exempted most of the forced labor, and built water conservancy in flooded places, for which the treasury was emptied, and the use of the palace was cut by more than half.

Isn't that enough?

The fine cow tendon bowstring tightly squeezed Wei Shu's fingers, and the feeling of stiffness was spreading all over his body.

She hadn't picked up a bow and arrow in nearly twenty years, and the colder and colder damp air was gradually scaring her will.

At this moment, she was like a piece of dead wood that had been dead for many years, waiting for it to completely decay after a heavy rain.

Then, she saw the already unfamiliar figure in the crowd.

It was Liang II, who "died" many years ago - her biological flesh and blood. She didn't make up her mind in the end, after all, it was the only bit of blood she had left that day.

And at this moment, her bloodline regarded her as an enemy, and the eyes that looked at her were full of hatred.

The raised sleeves slowly hung down and flattened, "Bell-", Jin Ge sounded, and the iron bow bounced twice on the brick floor, and the oppressive air seemed to be loosened.

Wei Shu stood still with her empty hands for a moment, and opened her chapped lips:

"When I die, hang my head on the tower, and I will watch you ......."

"Whoosh-"

The sound of breaking through the air suddenly tore apart her voice.

She was overwhelmed by a rain of arrows like locusts.