New June, new prospects, new... all right, he couldn't keep making it up. At any rate, he hadn't been castrated.
On the twenty-third of June, Ruan Rong gave birth to a son.
On the sixteenth of July, Princess of Beijing gave birth to a son.
On the twenty-second of July, Wang Xifeng gave birth to a son.
The summer of the Guangde 14th Year was undoubtedly a season of "harvest" for Sun Shaozong. Unfortunately, "eight or nine things go as one wishes, but scarcely two or three can be shared with others."
To outsiders, he had merely gained a concubine-born son. It was fine as icing on the cake, but calling it providing charcoal in snowy weather would be a vast exaggeration.
And in most people's eyes, Sun Shaozong was undoubtedly at the lowest point of his life.
At the end of May, Wei Yi, Minister of the Dali Temple, submitted a memorial recommending that Sun Shaozong be sent to Cangzhou Prefecture to oversee an investigation into the conflicts between gentry and scholars caused by Law Popularization in Rural Areas. The memorial was retained without comment.
By mid-June, rumors had begun to spread that Sun Shaozong had remained indecisive and two-faced, thus offending the Jia family and earning the Emperor and Consort De's displeasure.
At first, people were only half-convinced. But several individuals later swore that the words had come from Jia She, Eldest Master of Rongguo Mansion. Sun Mansion's doorstep promptly grew deserted.
By the end of July, the Second Prince caught a slight chill, yet Emperor Guangde suspended court for three days and personally attended to his medicine in Jingren Palace, causing talk of replacing the heir apparent to surge anew.
And Sun Shaozong, rumored to have fallen out with Rongguo Mansion and frequently visiting the Crown Prince's