A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 1246: Buddha's Hand Cannot Hide, Donkey's Foot Revealed
It is hard to hide the Buddha's hand, but it is easy to expose the donkey's foot.

There was a game among the people of the Tang Dynasty. The rule was to use a Qilin skin that one had drawn in advance to decorate a horse or a donkey in order to add to the fun during festivals. However, since it was difficult to decorate the horse's and donkey's feet perfectly, they were easily exposed during the game.

Hence the saying that it is difficult to hide a Buddha's hand but it is easy to reveal a donkey's paw.

No matter how deeply you hide, you will be exposed sooner or later.

In the case of the assassination in Luoyang, the emperor's three secret intelligence agencies could not find any clues, but Wu Huaiyu found them first.

It’s not that the people from the Wu family are particularly powerful, it’s just a coincidence.

"How did you find Xue Wanche?"

"This guy is very concerned about the assassination case and has been sending people to inquire about the progress of the investigation. While we are investigating ourselves, we have also sent people to keep an eye on the people in the various departments who are investigating."

Kunlun slave Tang Fengxiao, crippled Peng Weizhong, scarred Li Jinyan, Sogdian Hu Kangpo,

The four of them accompanied Wu Huaiyu for a walk in the garden.

Although these four people were either as black as charcoal, as ugly as a demon, or some were Sogdians, they were all officials of Wu Huaiyu, serving as the governor of Song, the chief farmer of Song, the lieutenant of Song, and the chancellor of Song.

These four people have followed Wu Huaiyu for more than ten years, and each of them is extraordinary. For example, Kang Po is a descendant of the royal family of the Sogdian Kang Kingdom. Her ancestors moved to Luoyang in the Central Plains. She is very wealthy and was recruited by Pei Ji to be his official minister to manage his family business and financial affairs.

Tang Fengxiao and Peng Weizhong were both sons of aristocratic families in Lingzhou, Shuofang, but were abandoned because they were born to maids or were born with disabilities. Li Jinyan was the son of Tudiji, the leader of the Mohe tribe who surrendered to the interior.

They followed Wu Huaiyu over the years, openly managing the affairs of his fiefdom and his industries for him, while secretly building an intelligence network for him.

After Luoyang was assassinated, Wu Huaiyu remained calm on the surface, but secretly asked the four people to mobilize all resources to find the murderer.

Xue Wanche and his men had been hiding very deeply, but because they were worried about being discovered by the court, they had a guilty conscience and had been sending people to secretly inquire about the progress of the investigation.
Because Fan Xuanfu had once assassinated Xue Wanche, and the matter was leaked a few years ago, Tang Fengxiao and his colleagues had already included Xue Wanche on the investigation list and had been sending people to secretly monitor and investigate him.

Xue's unusual behavior immediately alerted Tang Fengxiao and his team, who immediately launched a more comprehensive surveillance and investigation.
Finally, I found some clues.

I kept following the clues and found more and more.

"How much evidence do you have?" Wu Huaiyu asked.

"We have confirmed that Xue Wanche planned this, Helan Chushi was the middleman, and Hou Junji and Li Anyan were both involved."

"Hou Junji exiled Annan to become a commoner. Can he still be able to participate?"

"Erlang, although Hou Junji was exiled to Annan, he is not dead. He was also a meritorious official who was appointed as prime minister twice. He also served as the Minister of War and the Minister of Personnel. He still has connections."

Li Anyan was the one contacted by Hou Junji.

Who is this Li Anyan and why did he participate in the assassination of Wu Huaiyu?
Tang Fengxiao and his companions naturally dug up all his background and compiled the detailed information into a booklet for Wu Huaiyu.

Wu Huaiyu didn't know Li Anyan very well at first. He knew that this man was a close confidant of Jiancheng and that he had fought to the end during the Xuanwu Gate Rebellion just like Xie Shufang and Feng Li. However, Li Shimin had a special liking for him and still let him take charge of the imperial guards afterwards, and he was in charge of this position for seventeen years.

This led to rumors that Li Anyan, like Chang He, had long been a member of the King of Qin's army.

But now the intelligence collected by Tang Fengxiao and others shows that Li Anyan is not Li Shimin's man. He was not only a subordinate of Jiancheng's Eastern Palace, but he also married a daughter of Zheng from Xingyang together with Jiancheng. The two are brothers-in-law.

Why did Li Anyan want to assassinate Wu Huaiyu without any grudge against him?

Xue Wanche assassinated Wu Huaiyu because Wu Huaiyu and Fan Xuanfu had tried to assassinate him before, and he had been deceived for more than ten years. In addition, Wu Huaiyu had seized Hou Junji's seal of the Western Expedition during the last Western Expedition, and the Xue brothers who were originally selected as deputy general managers were also replaced by Cheng Yaojin and his men.

This has always bothered Xue, and last year he wanted to compete for the position of Protector General of Anxi and Beiting, but he lost to Wu Huaiyi again.

Xue Wanche is a reckless man, and so are all the Xue brothers.

"Li Anyan and Hou Junji originally had a good relationship,"

Wu Huaiyu carefully sorted out the complicated relationship here. According to Tang Fengze and others, the main reason why Li Anyan participated in the assassination of him was because of his wife Zheng from Xingyang.

A few years ago, the Zheng family of Xingyang had intended to get close to Wu Huaiyi, a nobleman who was extremely popular. Zheng Xuanxu of the Donglin branch of the Northern Ancestor family planned to send a daughter to Wu Huaiyu as a concubine to establish a friendly relationship.

As a result, the emperor was not happy to see this situation and deliberately interfered. He ordered that the daughter of Zheng Renji, the second son of Nanzu, be returned to secular life and given to Wu Huaiyu as a concubine.

The daughter of Zheng, who Beizu originally intended to give to Wu Huaiyu, was given to Lu Shuang.

This matter involves an old story. Zheng Renji's daughter was originally engaged to Lu Shuang, but Empress Zhangsun heard that Zheng was extremely beautiful and recommended her to the emperor without knowing that she was engaged. Li Shimin then issued an edict to confer the second rank on her and bring her into the palace.

The Lu family didn't dare to say anything, but the Zheng family happily prepared to send their daughter to the palace.
As a result, Wei Zheng jumped out to oppose it, and ultimately the plan failed. The Zheng family lost face, and Zheng's daughter had no choice but to become a nun.

But many years later, the emperor slapped Zheng in the face again. He married Zheng, who was originally intended to be Wu Huaiyu's concubine, to Lu Shuang, whom Zheng had regretted his engagement with, as his second wife.

Then he forced Zheng Liwan, whom he had not taken into the palace, to return to secular life and become a nun, and then gave her to Wu Huaiyu as a concubine.

After Zheng was hit on the left cheek, he was hit on the right cheek again. He was completely humiliated.

I originally intended to get closer to Wu Huaiyu, but I didn't expect to end up in so much trouble.

They had hoped that Wu Huaiyu would reject the emperor's arrangement, but Wu Huaiyu ignored them.

In short, the Zheng family later hated Wu Huaiyu, especially after Zheng Liwan married into the Wu family. She saw through her natal family and not only did she not help them at all, she also stopped having any contact with them.

The Zheng family didn't get any benefit from the Wu family, which made them even more angry.

Li Anyan was the son-in-law of the Zheng family, and he also disliked Wu Huaiyu. The most important thing was that Li Anyan had been very close to Hou Junji, after all, Hou Junji had always been a favorite of the emperor.

At the beginning, Hou Junji won over some imperial guards generals such as Li Anyan and brought them on board the Wei Wang Party.

They even had some secret plans.
Now Hou Junji is exiled to Annan, but Li Anyan still has a relationship with him, or it can be said that Hou Junji has something on Li Anyan.

Hou Junji was barefoot now, and of course he was not afraid of anything, but Li Anyan was still an official in the court. For the sake of his wife and children, he finally had to agree to do this.

The masterminds of the assassination were the Xue Wanche brothers.

But he did not want to show up directly, so he contacted Hou Junji, who was far away in Annan, through Hou Junji's son-in-law Helan Chushi, and tempted him to kill Wu Huaiyu so that he could help Hou Junji return to Chang'an.
Pull Hou Junji into the water,
Hou Junji used the evidence in his hand to ask Li Anyan to help in the assassination.

Li Anyan was responsible for carrying out the assassination.

The four female assassins were from the Zheng family in Xingyang. They were secret assassins raised by the Zheng family. The family had a strong aristocratic background and not only had students and former officials, but also followers and tenants, as well as assassins.

Henan was the territory of the Zheng family.

It was also convenient for them to attack Wu Huaiyu in Luoyang.

Xue Wanche wanted revenge, and also regarded Wu Huaiyu as the biggest obstacle to the Xue family in the court.

Hou Junji wanted to make a comeback.

Li Anyan was half-forced.
Zheng was seeking revenge. Since he failed to win over Wu Huaiyu, he might as well kill him.

These people worked together for a common goal and finally succeeded in assassinating Wu Huaiyu in Luoyang. Zheng sent assassins, while Li Anyan used his power to insert his own people into the team of 100 cavalrymen that was guarding Wu Huaiyu.
Wu Huaiyu's whereabouts have always been leaked to the Zheng family.

Unfortunately, the assassination attempt failed in the end.

However, the assassins trained by the Zheng family were indeed powerful. Although they did not succeed, they did not fall into the hands of the imperial court, and they did not even leave any useful clues.

But Xue Wanche was guilty and had no brains, so he always asked people to secretly inquire about the progress.
Tang Fengxiao and his team, who had been monitoring the investigation, discovered the clues and eventually found the flaws. For Tang Fengxiao and his team, what they lacked most was a direction and a goal.
As for legal evidence, etc., it doesn’t matter. As long as there is a suspect, there are many things to check.

Various means were used. This time, the Wu family was in the dark, while Xue Wanche and others were in the light.

"What kind of leverage does Hou Junji have on Li Anyan that he still listens to him and dares to assassinate me?" Wu Huaiyu asked.

He remembered that in history, Li Anyan and Hou Junji had a very close relationship, because both of them were beheaded because of Cheng Qian.

But he supports Crown Prince Cheng Qian.

"According to our investigation, Hou Junji and Li Anyan once secretly planned to launch a palace coup when Your Majesty was seriously ill with the Indian monk Dan poison, imitating the Xuanwu Gate Incident of the past, killing the crown prince, forcing the emperor to make the King of Wei the crown prince, and then pass the throne to the King of Wei."

Although this was only a plan when the emperor was in poor health at the time, it was not actually carried out afterwards.

But even thinking about this kind of thing is sinful.
Or is it the heinous crime of confiscation of property and extermination of the whole family?

Hou Junji is now a worthless person, and is currently cultivating sugarcane in the wild borderland of Annan. He wants to turn his life around and take a gamble.

Li Anyan is living a good life now. Although his official position is not high, he is still a fourth-rank general in the imperial army.

Once exposed, he would surely die, and his family would be implicated. He had no choice but to cooperate with Hou Junji and ask some people in the Zheng family for help through his wife.

Li Shimin suspected Zhangsun Wuji and Wu Huaiyu, but he never expected that it was his brother-in-law Xue Wanche, whom he always thought was brave but not wise, who planned it.

The person who carried out the deed turned out to be Li Anyan, whom he had always admired and trusted.

After the Xuanwu Gate Incident, he was put in charge of the Imperial Guards regardless of past grudges, and he was in charge for seventeen years. This man even planned with Hou Junji to rebel against him.

"What is Jilang going to do with it?"

Wu Huaiyu was silent and thought seriously.

"How much evidence do you have?"

"Not much," Tang Fengxiao said, "Many things are speculated, and some of them are obtained by improper means. If we make them public, it may expose us."

Wu Huaiyu thought for a long time and said, "Let's continue investigating, dig deep and thoroughly, not only to investigate the assassination, but also to find out the details of those who participated in the assassination."

"and then?"

"Slowly spread what you find out, little by little."

Reporting the results directly to the court is not a good option. It is better to slowly and secretly throw some clues to the investigation department and let them dig for themselves.
Finally, dig out everything.

Wu Huaiyu wanted to kill Xue Wanche, Li Anyan, Hou Junji and others, but after careful consideration, he felt that he could not do it himself.

They could secretly give clues, or even add fuel to the flames, starting from the fact that they had conspired to rebel. Li Shimin absolutely could not tolerate such a thing.
Once the imperial court launches a full-scale investigation into them, the fact that they assassinated Wu Huaiyu will no longer be concealed.

"Be careful when you release clues, so as not to let others find you by following the clues." Wu Huaiyu reminded the four of them.

"Don't worry, Erlang."

(End of this chapter)