The minister asked: "How can I save the prince with the strength of Zuo alone?" ”

The prince said, "You don't know, yesterday Zuoyang begged me to take him to see the world, and I asked him to disguise himself as a handyman and mix in the team. He was there the whole time, which can prove that I didn't do that kind of thing with the people of Chu. ”

Xiaochen ran out of the firewood room to find Gongzi Zuo, who was at Xiang Xu's house at this time. Xiaochen knew that Xiang Xu and the prince had always been at odds, but he didn't know when Gongzi Zuo would leave Xiangfu, so he had to call open the door of Xiang Xu's house and ask Gongzi Zuo to come out with him immediately.

At that time, Gongzi Zuo had already gotten up and was about to leave. The retainer who reported the incident suddenly entered the room and leaned over to whisper a few words in Xiangxu's ear. Xiang Xuxi said: "That's great! Tell the cook to cook it carefully and make sure to simmer it for a while. The retainer was ordered to go out, turned his head to Xiang Xu, and said with a smile: "Someone just sent a rare game, I don't dare to enjoy it alone, so please ask Gongzi to taste it with me!" ”

Gongzi Zuo was flattered, made a gesture and sat down again.

In order to pass the boring time, Xiang Xu began to chat with Gongzi Zuo about women from all over the world, from Dongyi to Xirong, from Beidi to Wu Yue; Xiang Xu said spittle, and Gongzi Zuo listened with fascination.

The middle of the day soon came, and the prince saw that the ministers did not come, and the brothers did not come. He couldn't help but lament that the relationship between father and son was so fragile that it was unable to resist the lies of a dead eunuch, and that the love of a brother was no more than a crown. It was torturous to live another hour in this sinister and desolate world, and as a result, the prince committed suicide in endless grief and indignation. The minister saw that Gongzi Zuo Rizhong did not appear, so he committed suicide in front of the door of Xiangxu's mansion.

The prince's desperate death was interpreted by Yi Er as "suicide in fear of sin", and this statement was also accepted by Song Pinggong. Soon Gongzi Zuo was made the crown prince, and Yi Er still served as the master of the East Palace, serving the new prince respectfully.

The crown prince was still in the dark until he was canonized, he felt that his brother's death was too strange, and there were too many unexplained doubts in the incident, and he was determined to find out the truth. Since only Ir knew the whole truth about the incident, and the crown prince could not get any information from him; The prince secretly launched an investigation, hoping to piece together the scattered fragments of truth.

the question of the prince getting his father from his mother's mouth; got Xiang Xu's answer from his father's mouth; From the mouth of Xiang Xu's retainer, he learned that one of the late prince's retinue had come to him; I got the contents of the book from my father's guards.

When the complete truth was revealed in front of him, Prince Zuo was shocked, angry and frightened. He couldn't tolerate a sanctimonious murderer lurking around him, and was afraid that he would encounter his murder one day, so he immediately exposed Yi Er's crime to Song Pinggong.

Song Pinggong couldn't help beating his chest, and he scolded: "That slave is full of loyal and patriotic words on weekdays, what 'take the king's heart as his own heart', and what 'never abolish the king's life until death'." How do you know that behind the scenes, he is a shameless and murderous man, and even the widowed prince dares to frame him! ”

The prince said, "Slaves are all like this, otherwise why are they called slaves?" ”

Song Pinggong immediately ordered Yi Er to be "boiled alive", and forced his people to eat his corpse.

But for the other murderer of the murder, Xiang Xu, Prince Zuo served him more diligently, for fear of causing dissatisfaction with the other party - after all, Xiang Xu was a figure that even Song Pinggong could not provoke. Although Xiang Xu was satisfied with the prince's hospitality, he had always been suspicious of the prince's mother.

It turned out that he grew up in the harem since he was a child, and he was not familiar with officialdom, and he was not good at tying up powerful ministers; She just spends her days with her concubines and sisters. She rarely shows her face, let alone takes the initiative to build relationships with powerful ministers. And her unintentional actions were regarded by Xiang Xu as fake and high-minded and unsightly.

But an incident that happened soon after made Xiang Xu eliminate his dissatisfaction with Mrs. Ping.

One day, Xiang Xu saw a technician training horses in the racecourse, and he casually asked, "What a horse!" Who do these horses belong to? ”

The technician replied, "It's Mrs. Jun's." ”

Xiang Xu pretended to be surprised and said, "Didn't Mrs. Jun pass away?" Where is a lady popping up again? How did I not know? ”

After returning to the palace, the technician made a report to Mrs. Ping. Mrs. Ping said thoughtfully: "If I don't take the initiative to get acquainted with a master, how can I ask the master to know me?" ”

The next day, Mrs. Ping sent someone to Xiangxu Mansion with beautiful jade, a BMW and brocade. Xiang Xu asked the visitor, "Who sent these gifts?" ”

The person who came said, "The concubine of the king, abandon the villain to come and offer gifts to the master." ”

Xiang Xu said: "Nonsense! It's Mrs. Jun! ”

The person who came changed his words and said, "Mrs. Jun sent the villain to present to the master." ”

Xiang Xu made a bow and accepted the gift.

The Wu clan did not belong to the Chu royal family, and the Wu clan first appeared on the political stage during the reign of King Chu Zhuang.

It turned out that Wu Shen was sent to the palace to study with the prince Lu when he was a child, and he was inseparable from the prince. Wu Shen was a lively and mischievous clever ghost when he was a child, and he was not like others who would only be submissive to King Chuzhuang; The two children often changed into civilian clothes and slipped out of the palace and even the capital to "let themselves go".

When he grew up, Wu Shen became the person who could talk to King Chuzhuang the most. If King Chuzhuang had not been strongly stimulated by Wu Shen after conquering Zheng and then went north to intercept the Jin army, the Battle of Yi would not have been fought at all. After the victory of the Chu army, Wu Shen's limelight overshadowed the princes and ministers, and he became the first celebrity around King Chu Zhuang.

Wu Shen's eldest son was named Wu Ju, and Wu Ju married the daughter of Prince Mou (Shen Gongzi Mu). Prince Mu had to flee the state of Chu due to the persecution of Prince Chasu; Wu Ju helped Prince Mou escape, and was soon forced into exile in Zhengguo.

Although the prince was later executed, the two were still not recalled, and they were still in exile to make ends meet. Soon after Wu Ju arrived in Zheng State, he received a letter from Prince Mou, in which he said that he had arrived in the Jin State and had been reused by the Duke of Jin Ping; He hoped that Wu Ju would come over and play for the Jin Kingdom with him.

Wu Ju accepted the invitation, so he packed up and left Xinzheng.

At that time, Wu participated in the Cai Guotai Dynasty and had close contacts; Influenced by his father, Wu Ju and Gongzi's son, Shengzi (Gongsun Guisheng), also became good friends. When Wu Ju set off, Shengzi was sent by Cai Jinggong to envoy to the Jin Kingdom, and the two met by chance on the outskirts of Xinzheng.

The two took out the wine and food, took the stone as a few and the grass as the seat, and chatted while eating. Wu Ju especially missed the days of living in the Chu State, and frequently expressed his desire to return to the Chu State during the banquet; When he talked about emotion, he couldn't help but shake his head and beat his chest, full of emotion; After a few glasses of wine, tears flowed.

Shengzi said: "Master, although you go to the Jin Kingdom, I will help you return to Chu." The two went all the way to the Jin Kingdom.

In this year, a rare dawn of peace appeared on the land of the ancient Eastern Zhou Dynasty. It turned out that under the painstaking operation of Xiang Xu, both Jin and Chu had the will to end the hostilities with each other; However, neither country is willing to send people to negotiate face-to-face (for fear that it will not end well if the talks collapse), so they need small Chinese people to act as microphones in the middle. Therefore, Shengzi's envoy to the Jin State this time was actually assigned by the people of Chu.

After completing the task, Shengzi left the Jin State and immediately went to the Chu State to report the situation.