Several Guardian Generals lowered ladders for their own men.
They had prepared for this long ago.
Opening the gates was troublesome, but lowering ladders was much simpler.
Before his death, the emperor had originally intended to place the two princes under house arrest in their own residences, or even simply send them away from the capital.
However, the supporters under the two princes repeatedly pleaded their case, and there were even influential generals among them.
This forced the emperor to postpone the matter.
Later, he had wanted to enthrone the Third Prince directly from his sickbed.
But his attachment to imperial power kept him from making up his mind.
What if he could live for a few more years?
This had happened before.
When he was sixty, he had nearly died, yet he had held on for another fourteen years.
Who could say he would not pull through this time? Hold on for another fourteen years? There had even been emperors in the previous dynasty who lived past eighty.
Once he pulled through, if he gave up the throne, he would never get it back...
No matter how close the relationship, before imperial power, it was nothing but trash.
And so, the intensely selfish nature of imperial power made the emperor hesitate until the final moment.
Thus came another sudden imperial death.
As for those emperors in history who abdicated early yet still held real power as Supreme Emperors, it had to be said that every one of them possessed exceptional control.
After all, once they abdicated and grew old, everyone knew that the young emperor was the future.
Yet the inertia of loyalty to power still allowed the Supreme Emperor to retain power.
This was something outsiders often found strange.
At its core, it was because feudal imperial power