Fengqi crabapple

Chapter 287 Trouble on the city wall
Being an emperor is not about treating guests to dinner, especially if you want to be a good emperor.

The emperor has been in power for ten years, and he has never been as angry as he is today: a section of the city wall that was just repaired last year collapsed!The emperor personally took people to the survey site beside the city wall.

Jingwei sealed off the entire street.The emperor sitting in the carriage sighed, he was getting further and further away from the busy street.

When the emperor arrived at the collapsed city wall, he immediately became furious!If an enemy army comes at this time, even attacking the city will be unnecessary.Lu Bin, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry, and the Minister of the Ministry of Industry, together with more than a dozen people, knelt down in two rows, sweating profusely.

"Lu Shangshu, what's the reason?" The emperor stepped on the pile of bricks and kicked hard. The top brick rolled forward and hit the pile of bricks in front, making a crisp sound - "pop"!All the people kneeling could hear their own heartbeats.

Lu Bin answered tremblingly: "Yes...the craftsmen responsible for building the city wall cut corners, which caused...the city wall was not strong. Coupled with the heavy rain for days, the rammed earth foundation of the wall was not strong...The Ministry of Punishment has been asked to get people..."

"Master Shen, go pick up the brick just now and see whose name is engraved on it?"

Shen Congxi went over and picked up the brick. The brick was complete, but the name of the brickmaker could not be found on it.Shen Congxi hesitated for a moment, then went to another pile of bricks and picked up two more bricks. The name of the brickmaker was not found on either of them.He threw the bricks on the ground and saw that two of the three bricks were broken.

"For your information, Your Majesty, there are no words engraved on the bricks."

"Go over and take a look at the fracture. What color is it?"

After a while, Shen Congxi came back with two guards holding shovels. Shen Congxi reported: "The fracture is gray. As we dig deeper, the joints of the rammed earth at the base of the wall also turn gray-black due to insufficient sticky glutinous rice. In addition, the number of wooden stakes is also insufficient, there is basically only one for twenty steps. It’s a good thing that such a wall fell down.”

The city wall of the capital is a structure of rammed earth in the middle and bricks on both sides. It is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top in the shape of a trapezoid. It is reinforced with wooden piles every ten steps. Such a wall is extremely strong and difficult to break even with artillery attacks.But such a city wall actually collapsed after a few days of rain.

The glutinous rice used as a binding material was cut corners, and even the name of the responsible person was not engraved on the wall tiles as required.

The emperor sneered: "Who wants to destroy our kingdom? Investigate it for me! If the culprit is found, no matter who he is, he will be punished for treason. His body will be beheaded and hung on the city gate to be displayed to the public for three days!"

As soon as the emperor finished speaking, Lu Bin, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, who was kneeling over there, fainted to the ground with a "thud".

With the fall of Lu Bin, the city wall case basically took shape. Zhao Muche, the left minister of the Ministry of Punishment, was responsible for comprehensively investigating the case.In his early years, Zhao Muzhe liked to be competitive and did not pay attention to anyone except the emperor. He went out to control floods for three years and cured his temper. He also developed the habit of careful observation when encountering problems.

Zhao Muzhe spent three days visiting the brick kilns where city wall bricks were burned, interrogated Qianhu, foremen, engineers and craftsmen who supervised the city wall project, and finally handed the emperor a list of names: Lu Bin, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, and eight officials of different sizes from the Ministry of Industry. People take advantage of the opportunity of building the city wall to make money.

The brick kiln sent money to the Ministry of Industry, and the money had to be saved from the bricks.The clay originally used to burn city wall bricks was relatively hard, so in order to save money, more sand was mixed in.After burning these bricks, would the kiln worker dare to carve his own name on them?This is a head-turning thing.There was no other way, so the kiln owner went to the Ministry of Works to send gifts, and finally agreed that there would be no need to engrave words on the bricks.Bricks are like this, and wall building materials are even worse.The glutinous rice used for gluing is the most expensive, and even half of it is missing.After the wall is built, the Ministry of Works goes to inspect it.There is a way to check and accept the work, which is to stuff the copper coins prepared to pay into the cracks in the wall, and the rest is the labor. In this way, the craftsmen will try to fill the cracks in the wall as solidly as possible and stuff as few copper coins as possible.

Now that the Ministry of Industry has accepted the gift, the acceptance inspection is just a formality.Whether it was cracks in the wall, wooden piles, or brick kilns, everyone felt that nothing big would happen if their own part was missing. As a result, the wall fell down.

"Your Majesty, the seven people who asked for and accepted bribes have all been sent to the Ministry of Punishment. According to the crime of treason, they should have their homes confiscated and beheaded. However, the son of Lu Shangshu..." After Zhao Muzhe hesitated, the emperor also remembered that Zhao Muzhe's biological sister Isn’t Zhao Jiamin marrying Lu Ziran, the eldest son of Lu Shangshu?At that time, the queen also gave Zhao Jiamin two dowries.

The emperor snorted twice, and Zhao Muzhe said quickly: "Everything will be carried out in accordance with the laws of the heaven. I have no objection. It's just that in order to avoid relatives, I would like to resign as the presiding judge. Your Majesty, please arrange for someone else to take over."

What Zhao Muzhe said was correct, but the emperor himself had forgotten that Zhao Muzhe and Lu Bin were still related.

So the emperor simply asked the Minister of Punishment to take over the case.

But everyone in the Lu family knew that it was the young lady's brother Zhao Muchhe who took the case first and sent his father-in-law to prison. They all grabbed Zhao Jiamin and asked her to intercede.

Zhao Jiamin was not having an easy time in the Lu family. She had been married for four or five years and her stomach had not moved.The first of the seven rules is to have no heirs. Although the Lu family did not dare to divorce her because she was a girl from the Hou family, they only gave Lu Ziran more than one concubine.What can Zhao Jiamin do?I can only endure it for many years.

Zhao Jiamin said to her mother-in-law and husband: "Even if my brother caught the father-in-law himself, he only handled the case in accordance with the law. The emperor has already spoken out about the city wall case and classified it as treason. Now it is lucky that the nine tribes are not implicated. How can he go there again?" intercede?"

"There are so many people in the Ministry of Works. If you kill a few of them, won't your father-in-law be out of the loop? People have come up with solutions. You go back to the Marquis and Zhao Shilang to discuss whether it's okay or not. It's not you, a woman, who has the final say. "Yes." The mother-in-law refused. She felt that it was unlucky to marry this daughter-in-law. After entering the house, she would not be able to have children, and now the family is still in trouble.

Lu Ziran also advised his wife: "Just go back and give it a try. Mother is right. As long as someone takes the blame, father may have a chance to escape. You are from the Lu family, and we have not found fault with you for many years. After all, don’t still act like a young lady from the Hou Mansion. You are the emperor’s cousin, so you should kneel down and beg even for the emperor!”

Zhao Jiamin was stunned for a moment. Her mother-in-law said she could bear it, but her husband just said what he was thinking today, but every word was heartbreaking!Zhao Jiamin had never been so wronged before. She pushed everyone away and ran out crying.

"Ran'er, if your wife refuses to take care of it, go to the Marquis Mansion and try it yourself!" Mrs. Lu urged her son, and Lu Ziran had no choice but to go to the house to intercede for his father.

There was a commotion in the Lu Mansion, and the sister-in-law also rushed back. When her mother said that her sister-in-law was unwilling to intercede for her father, she ran outside Zhao Jiamin's house without any reason, and kept cursing with her hands on her hips: "Don't think it's great that you have a princess. ? Who doesn’t know that the princess was killed by you? Now you have not only killed my brother without a legitimate son, but you have also killed my father."

No one thought of comforting Zhao Jiamin, leaving her crying in the room all night.

(End of this chapter)