C11

If it wasn't for the ten-odd years of confinement, Liu E would only be no different from the other women in the harem to Zhao Heng. As the emperor, Zhao Heng was able to obtain every single woman in his life easily. Since he had never put in effort, he naturally wouldn't take it to heart. But when Zhao Heng met Liu'e, he was still very young. His feelings for Liu'e had been thwarted at his most sincere age. In the following years, he could only secretly meet Liu'e. It was very rare, so it was very precious. In his entire life, there might be countless women, and the only one he truly gave his heart to was Liu E.

When Liu Er entered the palace, she was already thirty years old. All of the imperial concubines in the True Sect were younger than her, but the one she favored the most was still her. And Liu E, who had fled for thousands of miles and struggled to survive, had wandered around the tavern, and had lived for more than a decade in seclusion, her scheming was incomparable to those concubines who had lived like princesses from boudoir to harem. In the True Sect's imperial harem, she had always doted upon private rooms, but at the same time, she had never shown her face.

Not long after Liu E entered the palace, she was rejected by the Prime Minister Li Song, and wanted to be conferred the title of Imperial Consort. Liu E was no longer the competitive character when she was young. From then on, she liked to do everything in the world. She stopped bringing up the matter and started off as one of the lowest ranked beauties in the harem. However, in the entire harem, no one dared to look down on her, including Empress Guo. Even other concubines with higher rankings than her fought to please her.

Empress Guo's health had never been very good. She had given birth to three princes in a row, and two of them had died early. The only surviving prince, Prince You, had also died when he was nine years old. After the Guo Family left, the matter of Liu E being banned had been brought up on the agenda of the True Sect. The prime ministers did not accept a woman of unknown origin, of humble birth, as their queen. They even proposed another concubine, Lady Yang, and the granddaughter of the late Prime Minister Shen Lun as candidates.

Because of a name, being humiliated and rejected again and again due to being exiled, Liu E and Zhen Faction naturally wouldn't give up on this, and they were even more determined than Liu E, all those years ago they couldn't protect their beloved woman because they were powerless, and now at this point, they still couldn't make the decision, how could they be angry?

At this time, Liu'e suddenly stood up and said that she had withdrawn from the position of Queen. As a result, the position of Queen in the True Sect was vacated for six years. Of course, Liu E hasn't been idle for the past six years. For some reason, she has been with the True Sect for over 30 years without a son. This was not only her problem, but also the true sect's problem. However, the heirs of the True Sect had always been lacking. He had been living together with five sons and one daughter, but none of them had lived long. Until the death of Jing De's last son in three years, there was not a single child in the palace. Emperor Wuzhi was a very troublesome matter. Although the True Sect had no choice but to allow their younger brother's son, Zhao Yun, to enter the palace, they still hoped to have a son of their own.

In the third year after Guo's death, news finally spread from the harem that the True Sect had announced to the public, "Consort Liu'e has given birth to a prince." He then used this as an excuse to reward all the powerful officials of the imperial court. When the youngest prince was three years old, Liu E had finally ascended to the throne of the Empress as she wished. The child benefited from the name, and in the official announcement, his birth mother was Empress Liu'e. In reality, his real mother was Liu'e's maid, Madame Li. The Li family was from Jiangnan and their grandfather was from King Wu Yue's old clan. Moreover, King Wu Yue's daughter happened to be married to Liu E's older brother, Liu Mei, who was also the silver craftsman Gong Mei, who came with her to the capital. As Liu'e's identity and status rose step by step, she needed to have a family background, so Gong Mei, who entered the capital with her, became her older brother and changed her surname to Liu. It was also because of this that Liu Mei, who came from a craftsman's background, was now the one in charge of the military machine in the capital, Wu Shengjun. And this Madame Li was most likely a beauty who had been donated by the Prince Wu Yue's estate for the sake of Liu E's plan to 'borrow a child from the womb'.

In this matter, the True Sect and Liu E got what they wanted. Since they obtained a genuine prince, they could avoid the worries of inheriting the clan and make Liu E the empress. The entire story, Zhen Zong knew it all, and he had always been involved. Liu E was already 45 years old, and it was impossible for him to have a son. According to historical records, when he took Li to the stage with her after she became pregnant, Li's jade hairpin fell but did not shatter, so he thought it was a good omen for having a son. However, he still announced to the public that the one who gave birth to the prince was Liu E, because the only woman he loved and wanted to be crowned as an empress was Liu E.

Of course, not long after Liu E was conferred the title of Queen, the news gradually leaked out. This matter was not kept under wraps, but Liu E was already the Queen. Even if the little prince wasn't her biological son, in terms of reputation, he was still her son.

This story was later transformed into the story of 'a leopard exchanging for a crown prince'. It was in the Ming Dynasty. Dramatic poetry always has the tradition of "pointing the Han Dynasty as the Tang Dynasty" to avoid disaster. For example, Bai Juyi's first line in the story of Tang Xuanzong's Consort Yang was, "The Han Emperor cherishes and thinks highly of his country." The drama is more to use the ancient satire, such as Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang killing meritorious officials, the people will arrange the drama of "28 nights on the roof of heaven" that the emperor Liu Xiu killed all meritorious officials, and the drama of "Dragon Breaking Robe" that Zhao Kuangyin killed his sworn brother Zheng En, Tao Sanchun, wife of Zheng En, and Zhao Kuangyin will accompany him in his crime. So the "leopard for the crown prince" came out of the cage, and those princes' mothers, in the play, not only escaped death, but also went through a lot of trouble before finally coming back to the throne of the empress dowager. They used the play to scold the empress dowager, the grand imperial concubine, and at the same time, made a fool of the Ming and Ming Dynasties.

Like Liu Xiu and Zhao Kuangyin, Liu E also took the blame for the murder case in later dynasties.

At that time, Lady Li stayed by Liu E's side and was slowly conferred the title of Chongyang County's Monarch, Genius, Qingrong and so on. Furthermore, she gave birth to a daughter, and Liu E even sent Liu Mei to find her relatives and make her an official. Madame Li also understood that the True Sect had no interest in her. Compared to the current situation where she might end up as a White-headed Palace maid, although she felt sad for the loss of her son, her family's illustrious status and her daughter's birth made her extremely resigned to this arrangement. Besides, after the Little Princess was born, her body had always been weak and sickly. Only when she joined the Taoist temple and became a female Taoist did she grow up smoothly. Because of this, Madame Li believed that she was unlucky and did not speak for the rest of her life.

Ever since Liu Er was conferred the title of Queen, the Zhen Zong's body had gradually started to decline. Liu E was not only familiar with the history, but had also been following the Zhen Zong for more than thirty years, so he had a very good understanding of his ideological and political opinions. Furthermore, he had a very good memory, and his quick thinking was good at analyzing the situation.

At that time, the Prime Minister was Wang Qingrou. He was well versed in history and had a belly full of knowledge. Unfortunately, his appearance was ugly and his heart was ugly. He had first pushed out the people who had contributed the most and then used the matter of the Heavenly Tome Monoliths to hold the greater power. The longer Wang Qingrou held power, the more unstable it became. In the Song Dynasty, the prime ministers did not sit for long. In order to prevent the power of the prime minister from being too great, the emperor always gave the prime ministers rotations from time to time. Zhao Pu had been the prime minister three times, and Lu Mengzheng had also been the prime minister three times, which meant that no matter how competent they were as prime ministers, the emperor would still like to rotate them. At that time, Wang Qingrou had noticed that Kou's influence was too great and that he was meddling in other government affairs. He didn't even put the emperor's words in his eyes as he left. That was why he was able to get Kou Qizheng to leave at the right time. Now, it was his turn to keep in power for too long and have his subordinates push him off the stage.

Ding Wei and Kou Chi were originally good friends, so many people would have never thought of this. After Ding Wei pushed Wang Qingrou to the side, not only did he not fight for the position, he even recommended Kou Yu, who had been pushed out by Wang Qingrou, to return to the position of prime minister. But after Kou Yuzhan was appointed to the post, he soon had a conflict with Ding Wei. It could be seen that in the face of power, friendship was indeed very weak.

In the later years of the True Sect, there were many illnesses. Every time a sickness occurred, the political matters could only be handed over to the Empress, Liu E. And the Prime Minister Kou Zai was deeply dissatisfied with this, at this time Kou Qu was also different from the Kou Qu of the past. In order to regain his strength, he did not hesitate to create the "Heavenly Book" auspicious sign, personally manipulating the things that he strongly opposed all those years ago. And once he regained his strength, he was also very dedicated to power.

The struggle for power entered a white-hot phase. In order to overturn Kou, he formed a political alliance with Liu E. At this time, Ding Wei had already gotten married to Liu E, and his son married Liu Mei's brother-in-law, Qian Shuo's daughter. This kind of twisted relationship added another layer of protection to the alliance. At this time, Kou Zhen met with Zhen Zong alone through his eunuch, Zhou Huaizheng, and told him that the True Sect had agreed to have the crown prince supervise the country and Kou Qizheng would be in charge of the government. Zhen Zong muddle-headedly agreed, and when Kou Zhen returned, he asked Master Han Lin to draft the imperial edict. Knowing this was a confidential matter, Yang Bian immediately closed the door and went to draft the imperial edict. On the other hand, Kou Zheng was too happy to drink too much, so he told the whole story and it soon reached Ding Wei's ears. Ding Wei immediately entered the palace to see the real sect.

As a political figure, speaking without thinking of the consequences was indeed dangerous. No wonder he was defeated by Wang Qingrou the first time and Ding Yin the second time. It was because of these words that he was defeated. The True Sect was infuriated. Last night, he had only nodded his head to indicate that this matter could be considered. Furthermore, Liu'e reminded him that the Crown Prince was only nine years old, so how could he have the ability to supervise the country? Kou's actions were like taking power from the Sky Emperor himself. Zhen Zong was deeply disappointed by Kou Zhen's power and recklessness, and immediately ordered him to be abandoned.

Things were not over yet. Eunuch Zhou Huai was afraid that Kou was going to be demoted, and was afraid that this would implicate him. He wanted to start a coup to imprison Liu E and kill Ding Wei. But the coup failed, Kou was implicated, and was demoted from the capital. At this time, Ding Wei had already fallen out with Kou Zhen. His best friend would often become his biggest enemy. With his power in his hands, he would lower his position again and again, and directly send him to the southernmost part of the continent, Lei Zhou.

Not long after that, the True Sect passed away. Before dying, they issued a decree: "The empress will punish all military matters." He was entrusting the entire military power to his most trusted wife.

Liu E and Zhen Zong had been married for 40 years. Once Yin and Yang were separated, she would immediately face the most sinister political struggle. At this time, Qiu Wei was monopolizing power. Although he had formed a political alliance with Liu E while dealing with Kou Ya, the alliance had changed with the environment. In the eyes of Song Dynasty officials, it was a matter to be looked down upon. Taizu Zhao Kuangyin had seized the mountain from the orphans and widows of the later Zhou, and Taizong Zhao Guangyi had taken the throne from the orphans and widows of the late Zhou Dynasty. So Ding Wei did not put the Empress Dowager Liu E in his eyes at all and monopolized the power. He decided to change the "military matters punished by the empress" to "military matters punished by the empress" on the True Sect's testamentary edict, and changed the actual authorization to the temporary authorization. On this side, the Deputy Prime Minister rejected the suggestion of "following the example of the empress dowager of the Eastern Han Dynasty", and instead proposed that "the empress dowager review the palace and summon the court officials again in the event of a major military affair", and so on, and colluded with the eunuch Lei Yun-tong in an attempt to overthrow Liu'e.

However, he was wrong about Liu E. Liu E remained calm and collected. After finishing the whole process of True Sect's ascension to the throne, he suddenly used a reason to catch Ding Wei in one fell swoop. It turned out that at this time, Lei Yun was respectfully heading towards the Royal Tomb. Because he had listened to the overseer's words, he had moved the place without permission. Unexpectedly, when the project was halfway done, groundwater appeared. Even though Lei Yungong had made his own decisions, his intentions were not bad. He did it for the sake of making the underground cave look more suitable to his descendants, and he thought that he could curry favor with the royal family without too many of his descendants. And this matter was not related to Ding Wei. Although he was called the Mountain Emissary, but this matter Lei Yong was not clear either.

But Liu'e wanted a reason, not an explanation. The deputy prime minister had made a huge effort here, and he accused Ding Wei of "hiding evil intentions, and his heart can be destroyed." Ding Wei was exiled to Cliff State, which was the place Hainan Island was located today. It happened to be a bit further away than the Lei State where Ding Wei was exiled, allowing Ding Wei to pass through the Lei Province first.

After four months of the True Sect's death, Liu E returned all the power to her own hands. She had hired people like Ding Wei to clean up her opposition and then removed Ding Wei. Not only did she wash her hands clean, but she also took back the hearts of others. The next year, she had ordered him to raise his rank, but Kou was already very sick. After receiving the order, he didn't have enough time to leave before he died.

After Liu'e took over the imperial government, she changed to Heavenly Sage and Heavenly Sage. The two of them became Saints, that is, the Empress Dowager and the Emperor came to power simultaneously. However, Ren Zong was only a little over ten years old at the time, and Liu E was the only ruler of the Great Song Dynasty. At the same time, ministers came to power for Liu'e. And the introduction of a complete system of the empress dowager's drapes guaranteed the legitimacy of Liu'e's rule and made it a practice of the Song Dynasty for the empress dowager to rule. Almost every generation would have a draping empress dowager come out after that, and the empress dowager of the future when Liu'e was in power was also based on this system of etiquette.