Back in his palace, Ran Cao, who was already exhausted, wanted to get a good night's sleep, but the next person reported that Sima Xu was already waiting for him in the study.

Ran Cao then met Sima Xu in the study.

After drinking a bowl of tea, Ran Cao let out a long sigh and said, "Sir, thank you so much." If it weren't for your guidance this time, Lone would have died in the palace, and he would have died at the hands of his father! ”

"Your Majesty, the person you want to thank is not me, but Your Majesty."

"Why is that?"

"If Your Majesty really wanted to kill him, the king would have died a long time ago, and I won't be able to see the king now."

"You already knew that your father wouldn't kill Lone?" Ran Cao is quite unbelievably authentic.

Sima Xu said lightly: "This is nature. Why did Your Majesty kill the King? Your Majesty's love for your son is heartfelt, the crown prince is the son of Your Majesty, and you are also the son of Your Majesty, the palms of your hands and the backs of your hands are full of meat, and you are reluctant to die to any of Your Majesty. Even if Your Majesty knows that the death of the crown prince has something to do with you, I am afraid that you will only be demoted to a concubine and confined to the palace for the rest of your life. Even if His Majesty wants to execute you, will the Queen Mother agree? ”

Hearing this, Ran Cao thought about it, and it seemed that this was really the case.

Ran Cao, like Ran Ming, is the son of Ran Min and Dong Qiaoqiao, a noble Tianhuang nobleman, and the emperor's son-in-law!

Dong Qiaoqiao is kind-hearted, he just died of a son, so he naturally doesn't want another son to die too, and with Ran Min's love for Dong Qiaoqiao, it is impossible to ignore Dong Qiaoqiao's feelings and execute Ran Cao without authorization.

However, Sima Xu was able to calculate this, which made Ran Cao shudder a little, and at the same time, he was wary of this wise and demonic "remnant of the previous dynasty".

"Sir, what should Lone do next?"

"Wait."

"Wait?"

"Not bad." Sima Xu nodded and said: "The crown prince is dead, and the princes who have reached adulthood have all gone to various places to establish a country and become kings, so during this time, the ministers must ask Ran Min to set up another prince." And the popular candidates for this prince, in addition to the king, are Qin Wang Ran Zhi, Yue Wang Ran Zhan and Acting King Ran Xiao! As the saying goes, if there is no eldest son, you will establish a son-in-law, and if you have no son-in-law, you should establish the eldest son! ”

"The Great King, the King of Yue, and the Acting King are all born by the empress, and they have a virtuous name in the government and the opposition, and even in the feudal state, and as for the Qin King Ran Zhi, he is also highly respected by the Chinese Wu of the Dynasty, so the next candidate for the crown prince must be one of these four princes."

Hearing this, Ran Cao was puzzled and said, "Is it true that Gu just doesn't do anything?" ”

"yes, don't do anything. At this time, which prince jumps the most, he will be pushed to the forefront of the wind and waves, and the less likely he will be to become a prince! ”

"Lone understood."

……

The next day, Ran Min killed all of Wang Yun's nine clans, bringing this big case to an end. Ran Min posthumously gave the crown prince Ran Ming's nickname "Mourning Prince Xiang", and was buried in Jingling, and at the same time executed all 328 of the ineffective East Palace guards and gave Ran Ming a funeral.

Regarding the matter of establishing a prince, Ran Min expressed indifference, and tried his best to disagree with the public, and did not set up another prince.

In the winter of the twenty-eighth year of the emperor's reign, Shangshu Ling Cui Hao fell ill and unfortunately passed away at the age of seventy-two. Ran Min posthumously named him "King of Guangping County", posthumously gave him the nickname "Wenzhong", and his son Cui Hong inherited his title and changed the title to the Duke of Gaoyang County.

Not long after Cui Hao's death, Wang Meng resigned and went into hiding.

Those who inherited their positions as Shangshuling and Shizhong were Xu Wei and Zhao Sheng.

Originally, Qin Mu wrote to Ran Min many times on the grounds of old age and infirmity, asking for resignation and retirement, but Ran Min did not approve it. In the end, it was really difficult to resist, Qin Mu "faked his death", and Ran Min had no choice but to posthumously title him as "King of Pengcheng County", posthumously given the nickname "Xiang", and his son Qin Wen inherited his title and was the Duke of Pengcheng County.

Two years ago, Li Nong and Wang Ping had passed away.

With the death of such a large number of civil and military generals, Ran Min felt very sad in his heart and felt his merits, so he built Lingyan Pavilion, so that the government and the opposition judged twenty-four civil and military ministers as "Lingyan Pavilion Twenty-four Meritorious Heroes".

Cui Hao, Li Nong, Wei Zheng, Dong Kuang, Wang Ping, Qin Mu, Wang Meng, Ran Ke, Wei Liao, Lu Gan, Su Lin and others were among them, a full twenty-four people, some of whom had passed away, and some were still alive, but they were already dying.

Ten years later.

In 386 AD, the beginning of the spring of the thirty-ninth year of the emperor's reign, Ran Min began his last expedition to the west.

The Xianbei Empire is immortal, leaving Murong Chui's henchman to future generations, Ran Min is really relieved!

This time, the first target of the Wei army's westward expedition was the Slavs.

However, the current Slavs are too bad, the Slavs are still in the stage of primitive communes, but there is a relatively consolidated military organization, and tribal councils play an important role in primitive democratic life.

At this time, agriculture had become the main production activity, along with animal husbandry, fishing, and beekeeping.

Various handicrafts such as metallurgy, textiles, leather, woodworking, pottery, etc., also developed. At this time, the dwellings were relatively simple, generally semi-cellar-style earthen houses, approximately square.

Most of their residences are located near mountains, forests and rivers.

At this stage, the Slavs also had a unique form of social organization, called "zadruga", that is, a patriarchal family based on clan kinship, including several generations of children born to the same father and his wife and children, up to dozens of people. They live together, work together, and share the means of production and surplus products. Matriarchs and men have a lot of power.

The Slavs, like the Germanic peoples, had a strong village community system, but slaves were not widely used, and prisoners of war were treated as free men. Their social development went beyond the stage of slavery and went directly from primitive society to feudal society!

Rao is like this, the Slavs who drink blood still can't do the strong Wei army.

At this time, the Wei army not only had red-coated cannons, but also made fire guns and hot air balloons.

After entering the cold land where the Slavs were, the Wei army swept away the Slavic tribes one by one with the force of devastation, forcing them to submit to the Wei Empire and accept the rule of the Wei Empire!

In June, after basically pacifying the Slavic lands, Ran Min set up Slavic provinces to administer the vast land. Then the Wei army marched all the way west, crossed the Oder River, and went straight to the territory of the Xianbei Empire.

At this time, the master of the Xianbei Empire was Murong Chui, who had already launched a mutiny, executed the original emperor Murong Wei, and ascended the throne as emperor.

A fierce battle ensued between the Wei and Xianbei near Otogot, with 500,000 troops on both sides invested, which ended in a victory for the Wei army. Murong Trai was unwilling to fail, and led his troops to retreat to the city of Otogot, gathered the rout, and prepared to resist stubbornly, and at the same time asked the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Dynasty to rush to reinforcements.

The strength of the Wei Empire frightened these countries, so they did not dare to slack off in the slightest, and they all sent large armies to fight the Wei army.

In October, the Wei army relied on hot air balloons to continuously drop explosives into the city of Otogot, and finally the Xianbei people collapsed, and Murong Chui had no choice but to lead his troops to fight their way out of the siege again and flee to the Visigothic kingdom.

In February of the 40th year of the emperor's reign, the 620,000 allied troops of the Persians and Romans finally arrived and fought a fierce battle with the 200,000 Wei troops near Algeria.

Ran Min led his army all the way to defeat Iberia, Albania and Armenica, and the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire sent envoys to sue for peace, but Ran Min did not allow it, and led the army to advance to Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanid Empire.

The Wei army attacked the city all the way and was invincible, but when it attacked Ctesiphon, Ran Min's already unbearable body finally fell ill and died outside Ctesiphon on August 16.

When he was dying, Ran Min summoned Ran Cao, the king of Chu, and announced to the civil and military present: "Here, Ran Cao, both civil and military, has the wind of me, so it is rumored to be in Cao, and I hope that Zhu Qing will be good to assist." Treat the new emperor like me. ”

"Your Majesty!"

When Ran Min waved everyone away, leaving Ran Cao alone, he whispered: ", I can't do it." ”

"Father!" As soon as Ran Cao's eyes were red, he couldn't cry a little.

Ran Min sighed: "I originally thought that I would clean up powerful countries like the Sassanid Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Xianbei people one by one, so that you can sit firmly in the country, but now it seems that it will not work." I have gone to heaven, but what can I do! , you have to remember everything I'm going to say next. ”

"Yes, son, listen."

"First, after you ascend the throne, you must uphold my philosophy, expand your territory, and continue to exterminate the barbarians of the major powers. Complete the empire's plan of 'where the sun and the moon shine, and where the rivers go, all are Wei soil'! ”

"No!"

"Second, strictly guard against Sima Xu."

"This ......" Ran Cao hesitated for a moment and said, "Father, since you suspect that Sima Xu has a disobedient heart, why don't you execute him?" ”

"Do you think I don't want to?"

Ran Min smiled bitterly and said, "Sima Xu, it is a great talent that I left to you. If you want to deal with Murong Chui, if you want to clear the universe and conquer the world, he is indispensable to give advice from the side. It can be said that without Sima Xu, you are not Murong Chui's opponent! But you have to remember that for Sima Xuqi, it can be reused, but it cannot be trusted. ”

"Yes, Erchen knows."

Ran Min continued: "Third, after I died, the funeral was simple, there were no funeral goods, and no one else could be buried. My concubines, those who have children will go to the feudal country with their children, and those who have no children will accompany Jingling for a long time. Since the beginning of the whole country, the whole country should abolish the wind of human martyrdom! ”

"No!"

"Fourth, you should be close to the princes and kings, and warn the kings of future generations not to cut the domain."

"No."

For what Ran Min said, Ran Cao agreed to it one by one, as for whether it can be done, it is difficult to say.

Forty years after the emperor's opening, the 66-year-old Ran Min died in Tai Xifeng with endless regrets, and Ran Cao succeeded to the throne and led the army back to the east.

When Ran Cao returned to Daliang, he officially ascended the throne as the emperor, with the year name "Hongwu", and gave his father Ran Min the nickname "Emperor Taizu Gao"!