MTL - Ci Jinzhi

Emperor Xingyuan's heart became colder and colder when he looked at his son who was shouting that he was wronged.

“If you kill people without knowing it, what about greed for ink and money?”

 Wang Qing suddenly got stuck.

 He met the cold eyes of Emperor Xingyuan, and then glanced at the limp Minister Pei, and his courage to quibble suddenly dissipated.

Wu Yanting rebelled, and Pei Shilang admitted it. If he still kept his tough words, and Pei Shilang jumped out to accuse him, then even if he told the truth, his father would not believe him.

"Son -" Prince Qing opened his mouth, full of reluctance and regret, "My son just accepted some jewelry, gold and silver given by Minister Pei and others. When he was stopped by Miss Zhu's father on the street, he heard about the situation in Taiping Town and the inexplicable behavior of the Beiquan County officials. Regarding the death, let Mr. Pei and the others handle the matter."

Speaking of this, King Qing felt aggrieved: "My son really didn't know that what they were doing was to kill people!"

Going to that kind of hellish place, where there was no good food or shelter, he never went anywhere and just stayed in the Fucheng government office. The disaster relief arrangements were made by Minister Pei, and Commander Wu was cooperating in the execution. He didn't do anything. He thought of going out to collect some of the treasures offered by others, so why not?

"It was they who deceived their son. My father knows it for sure!" King Qing knocked heavily on the gold brick, making a thud sound.

Emperor Xingyuan looked at the people kneeling on the ground and was silent for a long time before speaking: "Come here, put Pei Zuo into the prison of the Ministry of Punishment, and Prince Qing will be locked up in the Zongren Mansion."

Minister Pei didn't even cry when he was dragged away, just like a ball of mud.

But King Qing kept shouting: "Father, my son has been wronged -"

Emperor Xingyuan glanced at the ministers expressionlessly and said in a deep voice: "He Yushi, He Zhenfu, you two, together with Zhang Shilang, the right minister of the Ministry of Revenue, will leave for Dingbei tomorrow to thoroughly investigate the case."

 “I accept the decree.” He Qingxiao and He Yushi said in unison.

 The right minister of the household department, Zhang Shilang, was not in the palace, but someone soon came to pass the news.

 In addition to these three people, Emperor Xingyuan also appointed a **** from the Bureau of Ceremonies to accompany him for supervision.

After the arrangements were made, Emperor Xingyuan asked He Qingxiao to stay.

“Go and ask what’s going on at Wu Yanting’s house.”

As early as when he heard that Wu Yanting had defected, at the signal of Emperor Xingyuan, He Qingxiao arranged for Jinlin Guards to go to Wu Yanting's house. At this time, the entire General's Mansion was surrounded by the Jinlin Guards. When He Qingxiao walked out of the palace, his subordinates who were waiting outside the palace to report the situation came forward.

 After listening to the report from his subordinates, He Qingxiao entered the palace again.

"After interrogation, Wu Yanting has three daughters and one son. Now only three daughters are in the house, and his son is missing..." After reporting the situation, He Qingxiao hesitated and said, "After interrogating Wei Changqing about Dingbei, Wei Chen sent Jinlin Guards quietly watched Wu Yanting's house, but did not see his son going out. Wei Chen speculated that Wu Yanting's men had failed to pursue Wei Changqing and were worried that the matter would be exposed, so they disguised their son and took him away quietly in advance to prepare for a rainy day."

"What a rainy day!" Emperor Xingyuan sneered.

He Qingxiao lowered his eyes and said, "This humble minister has neglected his duty, please punish me."

Emperor Xingyuan glanced at the young man who asked for forgiveness, and he was indeed dissatisfied in his heart, but compared to the series of bad things, this dissatisfaction was insignificant.

 “There are two things I need you to do well.”

 “Please give me your Majesty’s instructions.”

“The first thing is to thoroughly investigate the situation in Dingbei. I don’t want to be deceived anymore and reward corrupt officials and sycophants as meritorious officials.”

"yes."

"The second thing -" Emperor Xingyuan slowed down his tone, with a cold light in his eyes, "From now on, there must be Jinlin guards guarding the homes of generals above the fourth rank."

 At this time, the Jinlin Guards were said to be supervising all officials, but they were not yet pervasive. It can be said that Wu Yanting's defection greatly strengthened the function of Jinlin Guards as the emperor's eyes and ears.

He Qingxiao knew in his heart that from now on Jinlinwei's power would increase, and his reputation would slip towards the abyss of stinking.

 But these are beyond his control. As he is in his position, he can only do the things assigned by the emperor while keeping his conscience as much as possible and bear the blame and reputation.     "Wei ministers receive orders."

 “Go.”

After the palace became empty, Emperor Xingyuan sat on the dragon chair and remained silent for a long time.

 He was more angry than worried about Wu Yanting's defection. The famous generals who followed him to conquer the world are still there, and there are also outstanding young generals. It is only a matter of time before the chaos is put down.

 What really made him depressed was people like Shilang Pei, especially Prince Qing.

He had planned to pass on the country to this son, but now - Emperor Xingyuan closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was already indifferent.

 So much has happened on this day, and dusk is approaching.

With the return of the chief, people from various yamen knew more or less what had happened, and they kept silent for fear that this catastrophic disaster would spread to themselves. When it was time to go to the office, there were fewer people calling for friends, and fewer people entertaining colleagues. They all ran home quickly.

Among them, Duan Shaoqing was more frightened and went to Ruyi Hall as soon as he got home.

When the old lady saw her son, she was stunned: "What happened? Why does his face look so bad?"

 “Something big happened in the court.”

 The old lady was busy asking what was going on.

Duan Shaoqing looked panicked and said hesitantly: "The details are not clear yet. I only know that Prince Qing was imprisoned in the Zongren Mansion, and the left minister of the household department was also imprisoned... It seems to be related to corruption."

The old lady didn’t know much about the affairs of the imperial court, but she grasped one thing: “Something happened to Prince Qing? What about the Guchang Bo Mansion?”

The Guchangbo Mansion is closely related to King Qing. When something happened to Guchangbo, people felt that the Mansion of Guchangbo would not be completely overturned because there was still King Qing. But now that King Qing has been imprisoned in the clan's mansion, Guchangbo's mansion may very well be the cause of the annihilation of the family, and may even implicate others.

Duan Shaoqing naturally thought about the worst case scenario, but when the old lady asked him this question, his face turned even darker.

 “If I had known about this marriage—”

 The old lady's face sank: "Boss, are you blaming me?"

"Mom, you are too worried. How could your son blame you? He just feels that our family has been really unlucky these days."

The old lady sneered: "A virtuous wife and a virtuous husband bring few disasters. It didn't start from Mr. Qiao's evil deeds!"

Mother and son were worried about each other for a while. Duan Shaoqing sighed: "My mother asked my siblings to restrain the family members from going out, and my son also paid more attention. I hope this disaster will not affect our family."

Wan Qing was in the middle, and Wang's mother came to Xin You and reported: "Girl, Jin Chai over at Ruyi Hall quietly sent a message, saying that the eldest master went to Ruyi Hall as soon as he came back, and his face was particularly ugly. The old lady sent all the waiters out, We talked for a long time.”

 There are two maids beside the old lady, Yuzhu and Jinchai.

Why did the maid of Ruyi Hall inform Wan Qingju? I have to mention Mama Wang and Grandma Li.

　　When Xinyou moved out of Shaoqing's Mansion, he left these two to guard Wan Qing's residence. Later, he became richer and richer...

Mother Wang and Aunt Li received more and more rewards, and both of them loved to show off, so they soon became the envy of the servants in the mansion. These servants were happy to get close to each other, so Mrs. Wang mentioned it to Xin You.

Xin You didn't think it was a bad thing, so he simply gave him a sum of money just for the two of them to socialize.

Unexpectedly, he accidentally "bought" Jin Chai, the maid of Ruyi Hall who was slightly less valued than Yu Zhu.

 Let me explain, the gold bricks here are not made of real gold.