Green Mountain

The Princely Heir laughed heartily, "Occasionally doing it is fine, but if you really made me do it every day, I’d have to run away!"

Chen Ji said with a sigh, "I always feel that Prince Jing is quite different from other officials and nobility, it’s like he..."

Princess Bai Li thought for a moment and said, "Mother said that father suffered hardships from a young age, so naturally, he’s different from other vassal princes."

"Oh?"

"I’ve heard from mother that not long after father was born, he and his birth mother were sent away to Yueci Temple outside the capital."

Chen Ji was stunned, "Normally within the inner palace, even if a mother offended and was expelled from the palace, they would only leave the mother behind, not drive out both mother and child."

Princess Bai Li explained, "The previous emperor had seventy-nine sons, and the struggle for heirship was extremely fierce. I’m not clear on the specifics, but I do know that many princes and their birth mothers were driven out of the inner palace and subsequently died outside the palace. Father’s birth mother also died under mysterious circumstances in Yueci Temple the second year after being sent there. At that time, father was just over a year old. It was said that thanks to the secret care of a Chief Eunuch from the Inner Court government office, he narrowly survived."

"Later father grew up in a government office of the Ritual Supervision outside the capital, working daily with little eunuchs, chopping wood, burning charcoal, washing clothes, until he was eight years old when the current Empress Dowager brought him back to live with His Majesty. Father is three years older than His Majesty, and the two lived together in the palace for six years as close as brothers."

"Later, when His Majesty ascended the throne at eleven, father was sent out to establish his vassalage at fourteen. The young Vassal Prince allied with the Chen Family, Hu Family, and Qi Family from the northern gentry. It took him six years, secretly coordinating with Imperial Censors and other upright civil servants to eliminate the external relatives and assist His Majesty in personal governance... Of course, all these I heard from mother, so they might not be entirely accurate."

"From a young age, father had us do many things on our own. I heard that Prince Fu was fed and clothed by others since childhood; we didn’t have any of that. Occasionally when father had free time, we even had to join him in the countryside estates to cut wood and burn charcoal."

Chen Ji silently listened for a moment, feeling that this brief story seemed to hold many important messages. The Liu Family mentioned by the Commandery Princess was the external family, but why did Prince Jing, who had cleaned out the external relatives in his youth, later marry a girl from the Liu Family and make her his Consort Jing?