Chapter 303: Proposal to Move the Capital
On this day, the palace was covered in red and colorful, and the red carpet was laid from Daqing Hall to outside Xuande Gate.
The official family brought hundreds of officials to worship the ancestors in the Ancestral Temple.
Zhao Xing wears a curling cloud crown on his head, which is decorated with twenty-four rolling beams, one foot high, one foot wide, and guided by jade rhinoceros hairpins.
Wearing a crimson gauze robe with a red lining and black edges on the collar, sleeves, placket and train. The gauze skirt and knee coverings are also made of crimson. The neck is drooping, with a white Luo square heart-shaped collar, a large gold and jade belt is tied around the waist, white socks and black waistcoats are worn on the feet, and a sash is hung on the other side.
Zhang Guifen wears a phoenix crown on her head, a green gauze midriff, and a dark green waistband covering her knees. In addition, white jade double pendants and jade ribbon rings are hung, and green socks and green jacket are worn underneath.
The couple walked out of the East Palace hand in hand and boarded the Dragon Boat to the palace.
Arrived outside Xuande Gate, the two got off the Dragon Boat Festival, walked side by side, and entered the palace on the red carpet.
“Woo~”
“Dong dong dong~”
The melodious horn sound sounded first, followed by the sound of drums, and then various musical instruments sounded.
In the sound of music, Zhao Xing and Zhang Guifen walked forward step by step with slow steps.
"Are you nervous?" Zhao Xing asked.
“Yes.”
Zhang Guifen responded softly, without squinting.
"Don't be nervous, just follow the procedures mentioned by the officials of the Ministry of Rites." Zhao Xing said.
“I know this.”
Zhao Xing whispered to Zhang Guifen along the way to relieve her tension.
The officials stood at the entrance of the grand celebration, looking at Zhao Xing and Zhang Guifen walking over from a distance.
On both sides of the square below, there were hundreds of civil and military officials standing.
Zhao Xing and Zhang Guifen walked up to the steps and climbed up.
When he reached the halfway point, he stopped and bowed: "My son (concubine) pays homage to my father!"
"Yes."
The official family Weiwei He nodded and said: "Declarate the decree."
Eunuch Liu stepped forward with the imperial decree in hand and read out the edict of Zhao Xing's succession and the edict of conferring Zhang Guifen as the queen.
"My son, accept the decree!"
Zhao Xing raised his hands and waited for the imperial edict to be delivered to him before he straightened up, handed the edict to Sanshui, and continued walking hand in hand with Zhang Guifen.
When you reach the top, turn around and face the officials.
The music stopped, and a eunuch came forward, singing and shouting: "Kneel down!"
All the officials and soldiers standing in the square knelt down facing Zhao Xing.
"Bear down!"
"Get up!"
"Bear down again!"
"Get up!"
"Bear down again!"
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After three bows, all the officials shouted in unison: "Greetings to the Emperor, to His Majesty, to the Queen!"
Zhao Xing stood on the high platform, looking at the officials paying homage below, and his breathing became rapid with excitement.
From today on, he will be the official of all the people in the world.
Zhao Xing stretched out his hand and said loudly: "Pingsheng!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
Only then did the officials stand up.
"Enter the palace." The official said.
Zhang Guifen was led by the female officer to the harem, while Zhao Xing entered the Daqing Palace with his father.
The father and son came to the royal platform. The official sat on the dragon chair, while Zhao Xing stood aside.
"From today on, you will be the official of the people of the world. I hope you can uphold the inheritance of your ancestors and become a wise king." The official said.
"My son, please remember your father's teachings!" Zhao Xing bowed.
"Yes." The official nodded slightly and said nothing.
The officials entered the hall, lined up and bowed.
The official stood up, looked around the officials, and said in a deep voice: "I succeeded to the throne at the age of thirteen, and I am now more than forty-two years old. Today, the prince has ascended the throne. I hope that you can do your best to assist the new crown prince. "Your Majesty!"
"I will obey the orders of the Supreme Emperor, and the Song Dynasty will last forever!" all the officials shouted.
The official turned sideways, took the national jade seal from the tray held by Eunuch Liu, and handed it to Zhao Xing.
Zhao Xing bowed to take the jade seal and handed it to Sanshui behind him.
The official looked around the hall with a nostalgic look, patted the armrest of the dragon chair, and said: "From now on, the Song Dynasty will be left to you, I'm leaving!"
"My son, minister Farewell to my father!" Zhao Xing bowed.
"I respectfully send you off to the Supreme Emperor!" The officials bowed.
It wasn't until the official footsteps disappeared that Zhao Xing straightened up, came to the dragon chair, turned around and sat down.
The etiquette officer shouted: "Bow down!"
"Bow down!"
"Kneel on the left knee!"
"Kneel on the right knee!"
"Get out of the wat!"
"Bow!"
Hundred officials completed a complex set of worship rituals in the harmony of the etiquette officer's singing.
After the ceremony, Zhao Xing still has one last step to complete, even if he has completed the enthronement ceremony.
The last step is to worship the Ancestral Temple and the Heaven.
The emperor calls himself the Son of Heaven, so he naturally has to offer sacrifices to heaven when he ascends the throne.
The whole set of etiquette is very complicated. After the worship is over, Zhao Xing is young and he is also tortured. After the worship was completed, we returned to Daqing Hall again.
This time we are meeting with envoys from various countries.
When Zhao Xing ascended the throne, envoys from Liao, Xixia, Dali, and some overseas countries that did business with the Song Dynasty came to watch the ceremony.
Interestingly, not only did the imperial court send people to the Liao Kingdom, but Yelu Chongyuan also sent envoys.
After meeting the envoys from various countries, the enthronement ceremony has been completed.
The next step is to move to Zichen Palace to attend the banquet.
Zhao Xing did not go directly to Zichen Palace, but returned to Yanfu Palace first.
Yanfu Palace is located behind Daqing Palace and is the residence of the emperor.
Before Zhao Xing ascended the throne, the official family had already moved his concubines to Xingming Palace.
Although Bianjing City is very prosperous, the palace is not big.
The entire palace has a circumference of only five miles, which is almost 600 acres.
At first glance, it seems quite small, but the imperial palace of Jinling in the Ming Dynasty covered an area of more than 1,500 acres, and even the later Peking Palace occupied nearly 1,100 acres.
The reason why the imperial palace is so "shabby" is because Bianjing was originally just a state city, and the imperial palace was expanded on the original Jiedu Envoy's residence.
If we expand, too many people will be relocated, so we have no choice but to give up.
Because the palace is small, the official... No, he should be called the Supreme Emperor now.
The Supreme Emperor could only take the Queen Mother and a group of concubines and crowded into the Xingming Palace.
Zhao Xing originally wanted to allocate more palaces to his father, but his father did not agree.
Putting on his regular clothes, Zhao Xingcai went to Zichen Hall.
Zhao Xing sat for a while, then left and went to Xingming Palace.
"At this time, you shouldn't be having a banquet with the officials, so why are you here?" The official said with some confusion when he saw Zhao Xing coming over.
Hearing this, Zhao Xing smiled and said: "With the son and minister not here, the officials can eat and drink freely, otherwise they would not know how cautious they would be. The son and minister came to accompany the father, the queen and the queen to have dinner, but the father, the queen and the queen have not eaten yet. Right?”
“No, your father said you’re not hungry yet.” Empress Dowager Cao said with a smile.
"That's just right. I'll eat with my father, the queen, and my queen. I'm starving after working hard all day." Zhao Xing rubbed his stomach.
The Supreme Emperor looked at Eunuch Liu with a smile when he heard this, and joked: "Did you hear that? The new king is hungry, so hurry up and have someone pass the meal around."
Eunuch Liu smiled and responded when he heard this, and went down to make arrangements.
"Father, please stop teasing me." Zhao Xing touched his nose and sat down next to his father.
"Haha." The Supreme Emperor smiled and said, "By the way, Xing'er, you have to change your name."
"Huh?" Zhao Xing looked at his father in confusion, and quickly He understood and said: "Father, are you talking about taboos?"
The earliest meaning of the word "taboo" is to avoid the taboo of the venerable.
As the emperor, the subjects of the world naturally need to avoid taboos.
Zhao Xing is named Xing, so people in the world cannot use the word Xing as their name, and this word cannot be used.
Everything that has been used must be changed.
For example, the Hubu among the six ministries was originally called the Minbu. In order to avoid Li Shimin's taboo, it was changed to the Hubu.
At this point, Lao Zhu did a good job. In order to prevent the common people from having to avoid taboos and defining seniority for future generations, he chose relatively unorthodox words.
The name also uses the word "pianmen".
The old Zhao family is different. The name is very casual and will be changed after he ascends the throne.
In order to avoid the taboo of Taizu, Emperor Taizong once changed his name, and changed his name again after he ascended the throne.
Later emperors also changed their names.
Zhao Xing even wondered if he did this on purpose.
After all, the ancients insisted on not changing the name when walking and not changing the surname when sitting.
Logically speaking, we are all emperors, so we can just let others avoid it. If we don’t change our names, no one in the world will dare to say anything.
However, the emperors of the Song Dynasty would change their names after ascending the throne, which was suspected of being a show.
After all, in order to facilitate the people of the world, the emperor took the initiative to change his name and publicize it, so he would naturally be praised by those scholars.
Some people may say that the previous emperors were not the eldest sons, but in fact the names of the emperor's eldest sons were also very random.
"That's right, your name is too commonly used, so you need to change it." The official said.
"Father, it's all up to you." Zhao Xing said nonchalantly.
Anyway, he is the emperor now, no one will call him by his first name, and it doesn’t matter what he changes it to.
“Yeah.”
The Supreme Emperor just told Zhao Xing and did not talk any more about this topic. Instead, he said: "Now that you have ascended the throne, the number of people in the harem is too small, and it is time to draft."
"Father, this is It's not urgent, the Great Wall is being built in the north, and it's very expensive. As an official, how can I be extravagant and wasteful?" Zhao Xing said.
“No matter how little money the imperial court has, there is still money for drafting concubines. The inner treasury has also saved a lot of money over the years, which is enough.”
The Supreme Emperor himself advocates frugality. It has been in office for decades and has never been extravagant or wasted.
He was very pleased that Zhao Xing could have such an idea.
But he can agree to other things, but this is the only thing he cannot agree to.
He only has one son, Zhao Xing, so he naturally hopes that Zhao Xing can flourish more.
"Father, let's not talk about this for now. If I have money, I would like to expand the palace." Zhao Xing said.
“Nonsense!”
Hearing this, the Supreme Emperor scolded: “Have you never considered expansion as an emperor? But there are a large number of dignitaries living around the palace. If the palace is expanded, they will have to move. In the end, it is the people who suffer. Expanding the palace wastes money and money.”
Emperors of all dynasties naturally thought about expanding their palaces, but if they occupied the residences of dignitaries and officials, they would have to occupy the homes of ordinary people.
Now that the outer city is full, we cannot let the powerful officials move to live outside Bianjing without relocating the people.
"Father, in this case why not move the capital. Luoyang was the companion capital in the Tang Dynasty. Although it experienced wars and was somewhat dilapidated, it has recovered after these years and has no problem as the capital." Zhao Xing said.
Expanding the palace is just an introduction. What Zhao Xing wants to do most is to move the capital.
(End of this chapter)