His mother was the most favoured Imperial Concubine, and his grandfather was the Duke Zhen who had massive troops under him; his birth immediately made him one of the three most popular candidates in fighting for the throne, even overshadowing the Crown Prince.
The most important thing was, even his mother shared the same desires in competing for the throne.
A favoured concubine + Military power + an Emperor in the prime of his life; at first glance, this kind of arrangement already meant its upcoming doom was near. Not only that, he still had eight more elder brothers above him filled with ambitions.
Eight older brothers, and each one of them outstanding on their own.
Ye Shuo thought about it for a while, then closed his eyes and kicked his feet; whoever wanted to ascend this throne should just do it.
So what if they became the Emperor? There wasn’t any Internet, not even electricity, as well as any games; even if he became the Emperor, the toilets still couldn’t flush on its own.
As he had no desires to fight for it, just like that, the royal Ninth Prince who was treasured like gold and jade grew up to be an infamous dandy.
They had to go to the study room before dawn? So that’s why the probability of children dying young was high; he definitely won’t go.
Being a subject first then only a person? Even if he is the Emperor, wasn’t he still his father？
At first, the Crown Prince and everyone else thought that this brother of theirs was just keeping a low profile while biding his time, only till that time when he was eight years old and still continued being carried on his father’s back to class did they finally realized, that child was done for.
In the past, the current Emperor was always threading over thin ice, carefully maintaining his position as a son for thirty years before he finally ascended the throne. After taking the throne, his sons now were just like the previous him during those years before; until the birth of the Ninth Prince, that was the first time the Emperor met a child like him.
But for some reason that even he didn’t know of, the Emperor was instead very invested in his young son; even if there were more children born after, he was still less attentive towards them than him.
More than ten years went by, conflicts started to arouse in court, feuds amongst brothers appeared, times were changing; and yet only Ye Shuo continued to remain the same.
Nobody could expect that, the new Emperor would pass away three years after he took the throne, only leaving behind his one and only child as heir. With painstaking efforts and great difficulty, Ye Shuo finally supported his brother’s only child to the throne; however, he only took away his attention for a moment and just like that, the child was gone.
The imperial clan didn’t have anyone left; and could only let this Imperial Uncle of him to inherit the throne.
During his time as the Emperor’s uncle, he was only twenty six years old.
Ye Shuo: “…”
The day of his enthronement, when they thought back of how the previous Ninth Prince and the current Ninth Imperial Uncle hadn’t even graduated from primary school; the ministers couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with grief, and almost made the Hall of Supreme Harmony overflown with tears.
Their Great Zhou Dynasty, was going to end.
Seeing how the Ninth Prince after becoming the Emperor continued with his out of sorts behaviour, everyone including the Imperial Tutor had already made preparations to be annexed by the two countries around them.
What they didn’t expect was after a year, the country was still stable.
Three years went by, the common people no longer suffered from any hunger.
After five years, natural disasters started to appear, Ye Shuo took the oppurtunity to send out troops, and then annihilated the two countries.
Looking at this unified territory before them, the courtiers couldn’t believe their eyes.
Who would’ve thought that in Ye Shuo’s previous life, he was actually a genius.