After the emperor gave down his orders to the minister of the Imperial Medical Bureau, he stood up with his hands behind his back and paced forward slowly: “The t.i.tle, Qiyang isn’t very good. With his famous battlefield records, although it is easy to remember, it’s too fierce. Fighting in war, it’s too violent, this will attract evil spirits, that won’t be the best for his recovery. Let’s change it to Prince An.”
With one-word, that person is the prince, with two words, that person is only the county prince. The status of being the prince is of course much higher than that of the county prince. Only the emperor’s eldest son can be given the t.i.tle of a prince. For example, Xie Xuanji was Prince Jin. Xie Yi originally named Xie Xuanchen Prince Qiyang, first to avoid people from gossiping. After all, he rose to power from a rebellion, and secondly, to weaken Xie Xuanchen’s power.
No one cared about Xie Xuanchen’s t.i.tle before this, and Xie Xuanchen himself didn’t care. Xie Yi only has him as his only son. Being the crown prince or not, did it really matter? Using his results from his battles to get the t.i.tle, Xie Xuanchen felt very honored for it to be that way.
Later, when Xie Xuanchen fell ill and Xie Yi died, the throne was pa.s.sed to Xie Rui, naturally n.o.body mentioned these t.i.tles. After Xie Rui became the emperor, he made his son a prince. Although he was too embarra.s.sed to make his son the crown prince, he tried his best to avoid the matter regarding the inheritance right over the years.
In order to purify his own name, Xie Rui tried his best to promote the inheritance order to be from siblings and from the eldest to the youngest, he also said that this could prevent the back palace from interfering in politics and for the eunuchs to monopolise their power. Xie Rui praised this system, according to his remarks, when the next generation inherits the throne, it would be pa.s.sed on to the older Xie Xuanchen.
He inherited his elder brother’s throne, which should be pa.s.sed on to his second nephew. If it was left to his son, wouldn’t the emperor be contradicting himself?
Therefore, the emperor has always avoided mentioning his heir, and no one in the dynasty dared to mention this. Anyway, the emperor is still strong and healthy, and for a while, he didn’t need to worry about who should be the crown prince. He’ll just wait, maybe Xie Xuanchen will die first.
But today Xie Rui named Xie Xuanchen as the prince, this projected a whole entire meaning.
Only the emperor’s eldest son can be granted as prince, and the emperor has now made Xie Xuanchen as Prince An, which is indirectly acknowledging him as a prince. This is equivalent to admitting that Xie Xuanchen also had the right to inherit the throne.
The emperor knew that Xie Xuanchen wouldn’t survive past this winter, and was relieved. He suddenly remembered the promise he had made when he first inherited the throne, and no longer shy away from his inheritance saying. He mentioned that Xie Xuanchen would be upgraded to a prince, and issued many rewards: “The order is pa.s.sed down. I treat Prince An as my own son. He is the oldest and according to the system, his ident.i.ty is higher than that of Prince Jin. No negligence is allowed, as long as I’m made known about anyone who neglected Prince An, I’ll not let that person go easily.”
Everyone bowed and responded one by one. After the emperor finished speaking, he remembered that this morning, it seemed that the Empress Dowager was also complaining about something. The emperor paused and called the great eunuch next to him, and said: “Go to Qingning Palace and share my decree with the Empress Dowager. Although Princess An was once just a normal folk, but now she’s part of the royal family, regardless of her origin, she’s still my daughter-in-law. As long as she can take good care of Prince An, it is then a great achievement in itself. For all other matters, don’t put Princess An in a tough position. I heard that her female official was wronged. You can get some rewards from my private storeroom, just tell them those rewards were from me. From now on, the officials in the palace must be respectful towards Princess An, and no one should create more trouble in Prince An’s manor again.”
“I’ll obey your orders.”
The Great Eunuch, the Imperial Medical Bureau and the ministers excused themselves one after another, and in a blink of an eye, only Xie Xuanji was left in the hall. The emperor walked down from the throne and ushered Xie Xuanji to take a seat.