Just when there was disturbance outside the palace, the ladies in the palace were leisurely preparing for the Qingming Festival. Qingming Festival is also known as the "Thousand Autumn Festival" in the palace, on this day ordinary people will go out of the city to welcome the arrival of spring, but the palace ladies are difficult to get out of the palace, so they can only find some entertainment activities in the palace to celebrate.

And this kind of activity is to invite the relatives of the lords and nobles to enter the palace garden, and swing by the way. And the ditches in the palace should also be dredged and cleaned to remove the siltation of the year.

Zhou Yufeng stood on the rockery in the back garden, admiring an early-blooming begonia flower on the edge of the pavilion. Because of its age, this begonia plant is luxuriant, almost completely shading the southeast corner of the pavilion.

The red and white flowers hang in bunches on the branches, and although only a small part of them bloom, they still show the pomp and circumstance of the flowers.

Zhou Yufeng sighed lightly and said: "It is said that begonias are the gods of flowers and the respect of all flowers, which is really true." Every time I see the begonia flowers blooming, it makes people's hearts shake. ”

Yuan Zhaorong, who was originally sitting behind him, heard Zhou Yufeng's words, couldn't help but get up and walked behind her, and after looking at the begonia flowers over her shoulder for a while, he smiled and said: "Chengdu begonias bloom in February, and the splendid city is surrounded by alleys; Yan Palace's most prosperous flower sea. I heard that in the past, begonias were planted all over the palace of Chengdu Yanwang, and the palace was like a sea of flowers when the flowers bloomed.

When Xiaomei read this before, she always felt that the ancients were a little exaggerated. After entering the palace, I realized that this was actually true. His Majesty will go back to Longguan to watch the begonia flowers the day after tomorrow, it is said that the begonia flowers there are prosperous, no less than the former Chengdu Yanwang Palace. ”

When Zhou Yufeng heard this, she immediately put away her mood to enjoy the flowers, turned her head slightly to look at Yuan Zhaorong, who was smiling Yan Yan next to her, and suddenly smiled at her and said, "It turns out that my sister didn't accompany me to enjoy the flowers, do you want to talk to me about something?" ”

Yuan Zhaorong said with a smile: "Actually, the little sister doesn't have anything important, but since the sister asked, the little sister said more."

I heard that my sister is going to invite outstanding women in the city to visit the palace on the day of the Thousand Autumn Festival, and someone wants to ask me to ask my sister, but my sister wants to take this opportunity to choose a concubine for His Majesty? ”

Zhou Yufeng's face suddenly became a little unsightly, and she asked coldly: "Who is so bold that he dares to spy on the news in the palace, and my sister doesn't know how to avoid it?" ”

Yuan Zhaorong smiled bitterly, looked left and right, and sent a few maids out of the pavilion, before carefully whispering a few names in Zhou Yufeng's ear.

Zhou Yufeng was silent for a long time before he said with some lack of energy: "How can Lord British Duke and Shoufu care so much about His Majesty's family affairs?" Besides, I have a custom to choose a concubine, Taizu once said: carefully choose a good girl for it, and those who enter will accept it. How dare they offer beauties to His Majesty? I also want the palace to help them talk to His Majesty. ”

Yuan Zhaorong was also unwilling to be this messenger, but now Chongzhen only has one queen and two concubines around him, and there is a Portuguese princess whose identity is to be determined, and Chongzhen has no elders such as the queen mother and concubine with important status.

Therefore, in charge of the affairs of the harem, in addition to Empress Zhou, is the emperor's widowed sister-in-law, Empress Zhang. Tianqi has just passed away for more than a year, and it is obvious that this Empress Zhang, who has not yet been born in the filial piety period, can handle the affairs of choosing a concubine.

If this matter is discussed directly with Queen Zhou, it will inevitably seem that they are too urgent, and it will not be good to be hated by Her Royal Highness the Queen. Therefore, it is best to find a middleman to persuade the queen to give the queen a buffer and let everyone have steps to go down. And this candidate, the mother's family who originally chose the queen to persuade is the best.

But Empress Zhou's mother died early, and his father was not a cautious person, if this matter was leaked to Chongzhen's ears early, I am afraid that everyone would not have any good fruit to eat.

Although Chongzhen has been on the throne for a year, the lords who have suffered have already understood the methods of this young son of heaven. In the past, although they were afraid of the emperor, they were only afraid of the power that the emperor had, and they also knew very well that the emperor also needed them to control the generals' forces in the army, as the emperor's eyes and ears in the army.

Therefore, as long as they do not act beyond the emperor's tolerance limit, they are actually quite safe. But since the establishment of the military academy and the general staff, the role of the lords to the emperor has almost disappeared.

And whether it is the honorable or the current ruling civil official group, in the vicissitudes of the past year, they have unconsciously regarded Chongzhen as an emperor who is really in charge of the direction of the empire, rather than a young emperor who still needs to be tempered and studied before they thought he could be pro-government.

Although the British government stood in the way, Chongzhen only adopted a gentle method of captivity for the lords, and did not use too drastic methods to rectify the old ones. However, the emperor's delay in canonizing the title of the descendants still made these lords feel a sense of crisis.

The lords who were seized of the control of the army in the capital naturally did not dare to openly contact the palace as before, bribe the palace ministers, and find out the news in the palace for themselves.

Therefore, I can only choose to make up my mind from Concubine Tian and Concubine Yuan, hoping that one of them can persuade Queen Zhou to let Her Royal Highness choose a concubine for Chongzhen in person, so as to increase the popularity of the harem and give birth to the heir of the Ming Dynasty as soon as possible; second, Chongzhen can be divided into the palace, and don't focus on the official affairs of the foreign court all day long; The third is that both the nobles and civil officials hope that there will be a concubine in the palace who stands on their side.

After all, when Chongzhen got married, he was just an insignificant prince, so his three concubines were all the daughters of real small folk families, or the daughters of low-ranking military officials, and they had nothing to do with the current nobles and ministers.

If Chongzhen was only an emperor like Wanli and Tianqi, then the civil officials of the foreign dynasty did not care about the affairs of the emperor's harem, and they would have enough influence to make the emperor make a choice that met his needs.

But obviously, this Emperor Chongzhen is more similar to an emperor like Jiajing, who has purged the forces in the palace in a short period of time, and the inner court, which used to be powerful, is now suddenly silent.

In addition to Chongzhen's drastic rectification of the inner court, he also became more and more powerful in dealing with the civil officials of the outer courts. This situation has obviously broken a little, and the balance of power that has been formed by the Ming Dynasty for a long time has been broken. However, the party struggle during the Apocalypse not only caused great damage to the officialdom tradition of the Ming Dynasty, but also broke the old rules of the balance of power in the Ming Dynasty.

With the situation created by the apocalypse, Chongzhen encountered the least resistance to the reform of the Ming cabinet and the official system of the six ministries. The old system of the balance of power has been disrupted and the new balance of power has not been stabilized, and this is the best time to reform the old system.

Although Huang Liji recognized Chongzhen's reform path, he was unwilling to let Chongzhen's imperial power lose its containment and make the entire civil system a vassal of imperial power, which was obviously contrary to his cognition and the goals pursued by civil officials in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, they acquiesced to the actions of the nobles, trying to take advantage of the nature of Chongzhen's young Mu Ai to find a few daughters of the Xun family or civil officials to be sent to the palace, so as to reconcile the fierce personality of the emperor.

Concubine Tian is Chongzhen's favorite concubine, and I heard that her temperament is not very docile, and she even has to eat the queen's vinegar. Therefore, everyone excluded her, lest Her Royal Highness Concubine Tian hear about this matter and go to the emperor to report it regardless of the severity.

In this way, they only have Concubine Yuan to choose from, this Concubine Yuan's father is a low-ranking military attaché, and she herself is very low-key in the palace, and she also talks to the queen. Therefore, there is an invitation to enjoy the flowers in the back garden today.

When Zhou Hou was angry, Yuan Zhaorong lowered her eyebrows and lowered her eyes and did not answer, until she listened to Zhou Yufeng's breathing gradually calm down, and then said: "Several adults have proposed to Your Majesty a few days ago, saying that the palace reduced a large number of people last year, and I am afraid that Your Majesty will lack people to take care of it."

Therefore, I hope that His Majesty will issue an edict to suspend civil marriages in order to select show girls to enter the palace to enrich the harem. However, His Majesty rejected this proposal on the grounds that the weather was not going well, the four seas were not quiet, and he wanted to rest with the people. It was also ordered that the draft should not be mentioned for ten years. ”

Zhou Yufeng obviously knew about this, but she didn't say anything to praise Chongzhen's actions, but mocked with some unease: "What he said is good, but isn't there a Portuguese princess in the palace now?" I heard that a few days ago, he also went to Xu Xinsu's mansion to meet a Yiren woman.

In my opinion, he is not sympathetic to the people at all, but likes those Yi girls. That's why he pretended to refuse the request for the draft. ”

Regarding Zhou Yufeng's gaffe in front of him, Yuan Zhaorong immediately stopped silent, as if he hadn't heard anything. Zhou Yufeng quickly stopped, stared at her for a long time, and then said, "If there is anything else, let's say it together." ”

"Several adults are also worried about what my sister is worried about, the heir of the great tomorrow always needs the blood of the Han family, and His Majesty's favor of Yiren women is not a good thing after all. Therefore, several adults hope to be able to select a few well-born ladies to enter the palace to serve their sister, so as to consolidate their sister's position as the master of the harem. ”

Although Yuan Zhaorong's words made Zhou Yufeng feel indignant, she knew in her heart that this person was just talking for others.

Since there are British dukes and Shoufu behind this matter, it proves that they want to arrange women around His Majesty, which is inevitable.

Zhou Yufeng is not Chongzhen, although her mother died at an early age, making her precocious than ordinary women of the same age. But she was not the kind of woman who dared to challenge the old order, and the anger that had just arisen from hearing these words quickly dissipated in her heart.

The pressure brought by the joint efforts of the British Duke and the first assistant of the cabinet, even she, the Empress of the Ming Dynasty, could not resist it.

Previously, these people were reluctant to break the rules of the harem to choose concubines, because they could get what they wanted without breaking such rules.

But since they risked breaking the rules for selecting concubines in the harem, they also wanted to Chongzhen to offer beauties, obviously they had something to do with the emperor.

Zhou Yufeng's mind turned nine times, and then he said calmly: "This palace will choose it for Your Majesty, so you can reply like this..."