Upon hearing the shocking news of Zhu Zhanhe’s death, half of Emperor Yongle’s hair turned white overnight.

That grandson who looked most like him had died at the tender age of fourteen in the prime of his youth, before he had even had the chance to marry and have children.

More agonized than Emperor Yongle was Prince Han.

Emperor Yongle sent people to Qingzhou to arrest him and bring him back to the capital. In Qingzhou, Prince Han commanded strong troops and horses, and according to his usual temperament, he would never surrender without a fight—he would most likely resist with all his might.

However, upon hearing the devastating news of his beloved eldest son’s death, Prince Han collapsed completely. He ordered his men to lay down their weapons and surrender without resistance.

Now Prince Han was imprisoned at the Western Flowering Gate, utterly despairing, only hoping for a swift death to end the agony of having indirectly caused his own son’s death.

When walls fall, everyone pushes; when drums break, everyone beats them.

With Prince Han imprisoned, all the misdeeds he had committed over the years were dragged out and enumerated by people eager to settle scores.

For instance, Prince Han had slandered and defamed the Crown Prince, fabricating groundless reports against the Crown Prince, and had conspired with Ji Gang to frame the Eastern Palace officials, nearly causing the complete destruction of all Eastern Palace attendants.

There was also the matter of after his enfeoffment, “privately manufacturing weapons, secretly harboring treasonous intentions, and keeping assassins,” waiting for an opportunity to rebel.

Various memorials and evidence were delivered to Emperor Yongle’s hands. The false reports against the Crown Prince and slanders against Eastern Palace officials were things Emperor Yongle had tacitly approved or even encouraged Prince Han to do, so he wasn’t surprised at all.

But the private manufacture of weapons and keeping assassins was something Emperor Yongle hadn’t expected, and it was precisely Prince Han’s actions that led to Zhu Zhanhe’s death.

Emperor Yongle was overcome with grief. He threw all the testimonies and evidence at Prince Han and picked up a whip to strike him.

Prince Han knelt on the ground, motionless, allowing Emperor Yongle to beat him, as if he felt no pain.

Beat me! All this is my own doing. Having lost his eldest son, Prince Han was like a walking corpse, facing his father’s whip directly.

Did it hurt? His heart hurt more.

Prince Han was beaten bloody, and Eunuch Zheng He, fearing someone might be killed, and knowing that Emperor Yongle’s consecutive losses of grandson and son would cause him even greater pain, quietly summoned the Crown Prince to the Western Flowering Gate.

As soon as the Crown Prince saw Prince Han beaten to a bloody pulp, he immediately limped forward, knelt down and embraced Prince Han, shielding his younger brother from the whip.

The Crown Prince was obese, like a mountain of flesh. Prince Han wasn’t knocked unconscious by his father’s beating, but was nearly suffocated by his elder brother’s crushing embrace—it was truly a breathtaking display of brotherly affection.

When the Crown Prince came to plead for mercy, the furious Emperor Yongle finally stopped and threw down the blood-soaked whip.

Whether knocked unconscious by the beating or by the Crown Prince’s embrace, Prince Han collapsed and lost consciousness. Eunuch Zheng He called in the imperial physicians who had been waiting outside to treat Prince Han.

Watching his blood-soaked second son being carried away, Emperor Yongle’s rage subsided, and grief swept over him, consuming him entirely.

The Zhu family was the only royal house in thousands of years to emerge from grassroots origins. Zhu Yuanzhang’s father was a tenant farmer who worked landlords’ fields, and his mother Chen Shi’s father was a Song Dynasty military man who, after the fall of Song, refused to surrender to the Yuan Dynasty, abandoned military service for the Dao, and supported his family as a wandering Daoist priest—also from the proletariat. Thus the Ming imperial house was the most down-to-earth, with truly red roots and proper seedlings.

Throughout all dynasties, the game of power had always been a game for nobles or the propertied class. There had been instances of emperors killing their own sons, even empresses killing their children, but the Zhu family’s inherent blood ethics hadn’t been worn away by imperial power. Back when Prince Qin was utterly wicked, even Emperor Gaozhu Zhu Yuanzhang hadn’t killed him. Now, having lost his second grandson, Emperor Yongle wouldn’t kill his second son either.

Beating his second son until he was half-dead, Emperor Yongle wasn’t truly trying to kill his son, but rather seeking atonement for his son’s sin of indirectly killing his grandson.

Every lash of the whip that struck Prince Han’s body also struck Emperor Yongle’s heart.

This second son who was born on New Year’s Eve! I will never forget his birthday—heaven sent this qilin child, this child who once brought such joy to me and Miao Yi… how did he become like this?

The Imperial Grand Prince was his own nephew—how could he conspire with Ji Gang to strike a deadly blow against his own elder nephew!

Harming others ultimately harms oneself; he had killed his own son.

No matter how grieved Emperor Yongle was, he wouldn’t kill his own son. He was, after all, a father, and fathers of the Zhu family, no matter how disappointed or wary of their sons, would never commit filicide. Therefore, Emperor Yongle chose to punish his son with flogging.

His grandson couldn’t die in vain.

Emperor Yongle collapsed onto the dragon throne. After a while, the Crown Prince was helped over by two eunuchs and said, “The imperial physicians say second brother is severely injured, but he has a strong constitution, and there’s no immediate danger to his life.”

Emperor Yongle knew his own strength. His whip looked terrifying, lash after lash, with the whip creating afterimages in the air, leaving Prince Han’s body without a single patch of unbroken skin, but he had actually held back and hadn’t struck to kill. After more than a hundred lashes, his son still wasn’t beaten to death. Having spent half his life in military campaigns, if Emperor Yongle had truly wanted to kill his son, ten lashes would have sufficed.

Emperor Yongle was physically and mentally exhausted. Besides using the whip to avenge his grandson, he also owed his eldest son an explanation, since Prince Han’s goal had been to kill the Imperial Grand Prince, and Zhu Zhanji was the eldest son’s child.

Emperor Yongle said, “Transmit my decree: strip Zhu Gaoxu of his status, reducing him to commoner rank. Remove the Prince Han title, confine the entire family to Fengyang, forbidden to leave without imperial decree.”

The Crown Prince immediately knelt down to plead for Prince Han, requesting that his princely title be preserved.

Did the Crown Prince hate Prince Han?

Yes, he did.

Over these years, the Crown Prince had been driven to depression by his younger brother.

Zhu Zhanji was the eldest son who had sacrificed so much for the Eastern Palace over sixteen years. Without this capable son, the Crown Prince would have long ago become a deposed crown prince. Now that his younger brother wanted to kill his most outstanding son, how could the Crown Prince not be angry? Not hate him?

But as an elder brother by blood, the Crown Prince would absolutely never sit by and watch his younger brother Prince Han, who no longer posed any threat to the succession, fall victim to others kicking him while he was down.

By the Crown Prince’s generation in the Zhu family, they were already the third generation of royalty. Unlike Emperor Yongle, who had experienced the turbulent founding years, they were unquestionably imperial nobility, born into silk and jade, receiving orthodox royal education, no longer down-to-earth, and no different from imperial families of all previous dynasties.

They considered more the weighing of pros and cons, seeking the middle ground of balance.

Especially this generation of imperial core members in the Yongle reign—all the princes and princesses were born to Empress Renxiao.

As an elder brother destined to inherit the family business and bear responsibility, he had to take initiative in shouldering joint responsibility for his younger brother’s crimes.

If the Crown Prince sat by and watched Prince Han be stripped of his title and the entire family confined, it would chill the hearts of all his younger brothers and sisters, even the entire Ming imperial family.

What use was stripping Prince Han of his title? Prince Han had completely lost imperial favor, and Ji Gang and other members of Prince Han’s faction had also been eliminated. A toothless tiger was like a cat, no longer able to threaten the Eastern Palace’s position in the slightest.

At this moment, stepping forward to plead for Prince Han was exactly the perfect opportunity to gain the emperor’s trust, earn the respect of officials and common people, and solidify his reputation for benevolence.

Therefore, whether from self-interest or blood ties, the Crown Prince had to make every effort to plead for Prince Han.

The Crown Prince’s act of kneeling to plead didn’t appear weak, but rather righteous, conforming to the mainstream moral values of the time.

When the Crown Prince pleaded for his brother for the first time, Emperor Yongle didn’t agree, firmly intending to strip Prince Han of his title.

Having been monarch and subject, father and son with his father for many years, the Crown Prince understood his father’s imperial tactics too well:

He knew Emperor Yongle wouldn’t agree—at least not the first time, because if he agreed too readily, it would seem the emperor was too easily swayed, making people think he was showing favoritism to his son, letting him off with just a beating after committing such crimes.

Building tall towers starts from the ground up; only with a first time can there be a second and third time.

The Crown Prince, who was supposed to cooperate in this performance, turned a blind eye to Emperor Yongle’s refusal and began his impromptu acting.

He knelt at the Hall of Worshipping Ancestors, begging the ancestors to forgive Prince Han’s crimes (actually announcing Prince Han’s crimes before the ancestors).

Emperor Yongle refused again, still insisting on stripping Prince Han of his title.

The third time, Prince Han knelt before the memorial tablet of his mother, Empress Renxiao.

Empress Renxiao was the white moonlight in Emperor Yongle’s heart.

She was like quantum mechanics in later science fiction novels or films—whenever authors or screenwriters got stuck and didn’t know how to explain things, they would bring out quantum mechanics to solve everything.

The Crown Prince was a fat man with leg problems—his fragile knees had to bear three hundred pounds of weight, and every moment of kneeling was torture.

He had no choice but to endure. In the imperial family, everyone ultimately became dedicated, skillfully performing method actors.

When he finally collapsed from kneeling, even the Crown Prince couldn’t tell whether he was acting or truly pleading for his brother.

The last thing the Crown Prince saw before losing consciousness was the portrait of Empress Renxiao.

Empress Renxiao had always supported the eldest son.

The Crown Prince thought to himself: Mother, when we are reunited in the afterlife, I will have the face to meet you.

The Crown Prince fell ill. The imperial physicians examined his knees and diagnosed that the Crown Prince already had type 2 diabetes with complications in both feet, and now his joints were also problematic. The physicians warned the Crown Prince that if he knelt again, they might have to start amputating from his knees.

When Emperor Yongle learned of the Crown Prince’s condition from the imperial physicians, the Crown Prince’s sincerity in pleading had been sufficient, “moving” Emperor Yongle and even more so the imperial family and court officials, who all praised the Crown Prince’s benevolence.

Empress Renxiao indeed cured all ailments. For the empress’s sake, Emperor Yongle spared Prince Han, reducing the number of guards at the prince’s mansion and changing his fiefdom from Qingzhou to Le’an Prefecture in Shandong.

Prince Han’s matter was resolved through the Crown Prince’s political performance of pleading for mercy.

But Ji Gang, who had conspired with Prince Han, wouldn’t escape punishment so easily.

All those who had died in the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s imperial prison over the years, whether deservedly or wrongfully, were ultimately blamed on Commander Ji Gang. Especially Xie Jin’s death—the great Ming Dynasty’s foremost talent, chief editor of the “Yongle Encyclopedia,” had actually been frozen to death in the snow.

Court officials flocked to impeach Ji Gang for falsely transmitting imperial decrees, leading to Xie Jin’s tragic death. Ji Gang had already been blown apart by Prince Han’s heir’s cannon, his remaining bones already cremated, leaving only an urn of ashes. However, given Ji Gang’s accumulated evil deeds, if his bones weren’t ground to dust and scattered, how could public anger be appeased?

Besides demanding Ji Gang’s bones be ground to dust, the officials also demanded punishment for Ji Gang’s associates. Among them, palace female official Hu Shanwei was included in the list of Ji Gang’s faction and faced impeachment.

As a palace female official, Hu Shanwei actually maintained her own residence outside the palace, entering and leaving the palace daily. Regardless of wind, rain, cold, or heat, she was always escorted strictly by Embroidered Uniform Guards sent by Ji Gang, and Ji Gang had even personally escorted Hu Shanwei several times.

Some officials couldn’t stand it and blocked Hu Shanwei’s carriage midway, accusing her of “not observing womanly virtues” and “not following palace rules,” demanding she live in the palace and stop parading openly through the streets. These officials who spoke out righteously were all arrested by Ji Gang and taken to the imperial prison, where false charges were fabricated against them, destroying their families. From then on, people dared to be angry but not speak out.

Now that Ji Gang’s treason was announced to the world, all his associates either lost their positions or were imprisoned. How could Hu Shanwei alone escape unscathed?

Inside and outside the palace, old rumors began circulating again, spreading gossip about Hu Shanwei and Ji Gang, saying the two had long been having an affair and that Hu’s residence was their love nest.

The officials who had previously accused her jumped out again to kick her while she was down, submitting memorials impeaching Hu Shanwei, even comparing her to Lu Lingxuan, the palace female official from the Northern Qi era who colluded with powerful ministers, controlled the palace, bewitched the ruler, and brought disaster to the nation.

Thus Hu Shanwei became Hu the Disaster.

Soon, memorials impeaching Hu Shanwei piled high on the imperial desk. Additionally, some titled ladies also submitted letters to Noble Consort Zhang, requesting Hu Shanwei be expelled from the palace.

Neither Emperor Yongle nor Noble Consort Zhang responded to these requests.

People became increasingly angry, feeling that the ruler and the noble consort who managed the harem had indeed been deceived by the enchantress Hu Shanwei. When one attempt failed, they submitted memorials again, determined to bring down Hu Shanwei before they would give up.

In the Imperial Study.

Emperor Yongle handed an old book to Hu Shanwei. “This was found in the underground secret chamber of Ji Gang’s house, where memorial tablets and portraits of the previous Embroidered Uniform Guard commander Mao Qiang were enshrined.”

Hu Shanwei opened it and saw it was a registry. The pages were yellowed with some dampness, showing its age. Inside were written individual names, all circled with red ink.

They were all officials, imperial family members, and others who had impeached Mao Qiang back then. The late Duke Cao Li Jinlong, son-in-law Hu Guan, and Grand Secretary Xie Jin were all on the list.

As Hu Shanwei turned page by page, understanding court politics as she did, she discovered the names on the list shared one common trait: they were all dead.

When Hu Shanwei reached the last page, she saw the final line: “Zhu Ming Imperial House.”

Only this line hadn’t been circled with red ink yet.

Previously, Hu Shanwei hadn’t understood why Ji Gang would conspire with Prince Han to rebel and kill the Imperial Grand Prince. Now seeing this evidence, she had an epiphany: Ji Gang wanted to avenge Mao Qiang.

Hu Shanwei’s hands trembled. The lightweight book in her hands seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Using all her strength, she closed the registry.

Hu Shanwei untied the jade tablet from her waist, removed the black silk cap from her head, placed them on top of the registry, and said: “Though this subject didn’t participate in the treason, I was longtime friends with Ji Gang, frequently associated with him, yet never detected anything suspicious about him. As a palace female official, I bear the crime of failure to detect. I now resign from my position as Palace Supervisor and await sentencing from the Palace Justice Department.”