After the whole family was swept away, I lay down flat

Chapter 822 Follow-up
When Haitang read this part of the letter, she couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Jin Jiashu's question was really a good one. At this point, Sun Ge Lao still wanted to pretend to be a loyal minister to confuse others and seek benefits for himself and his family, so Jin Jiashu simply took off his skin.

A powerful official who can take away and kill innocent passersby at will has nothing to do with words like loyal official or gentleman. He should stop pretending! Do you have the nerve to say that you have made achievements? Let's first look at how many evils he has committed and how many people he has harmed in the past!
Anyway, he couldn't answer Jin Jiashu's question at all. The more embarrassed he was, the more cruel and vicious his family seemed. Even if there were still people who were confused by his words, they should wake up after seeing this scene.

Of course, Lord Sun could not answer Jin Jiashu's question. What Jin Jiashu asked was a false proposition. There was no Jin Xu being taken away by the minions of the Sun family. Moreover, in Jin Jiashu's words, Jin Liu pinned the identity of "the escaped maid of the Wu family" on Jin Xu, so the one taken away by the Sun family was the escaped maid of the Wu family. There were so many people who suffered from the disaster back then. Lord Sun and Sun Yongping, how could they care about the whereabouts of a mere maid? They didn't know what Jin Xu looked like, and it was impossible for them to have seen her in person, so how could they say where she was taken?
Even if the emperor sent people to investigate the Sun family's private soldiers, there would be no answer. Can the Sun family still admit that they had killed so many innocent people related to the Wu family? If they admitted it, the Sun family would have no future.

However, if the emperor is not satisfied with just letting the father and son of Sun Ge Lao lose their jobs, and is determined to kill them all, this is a good reason. He can order people to arrest the private soldiers of the Sun family and torture them severely. If he cannot find "Jin Xu", it would be a good thing to find other victims harmed by the Sun family. The confessions obtained from the interrogation will be the evidence of the Sun family's evil deeds. At that time, whether the Sun family lives or dies will be decided by the emperor's words.

He is showing grace to his old minister by not punishing the father and son of Lord Sun severely now; if he executes members of the Sun family for their crimes in the future, it is also exercising the power of a monarch, and is the behavior of a wise monarch who governs the country by law and does not bend the law for personal gain. From the beginning to the end, it was the Sun family that failed to live up to the emperor's grace and acted in a way that disappointed the emperor. It is definitely not that the emperor is mean and ungrateful, and that he is taking revenge on his meritorious ministers after the event. There is nothing wrong with that.

If the emperor eradicated the Sun family during his tenure, it would remove a major stain on his reign. Emperor Deguang would be a wise and enlightened ruler again, and countless ministers would shout "Long live the emperor" and sing his praises.

Haitang showed a mocking smile on her face and continued reading the letter.

Hai Jiao said that according to Jin Jiashu, Sun Ge Lao did not answer his question, and Sun Yongping, who was standing next to him, also spoke ill of him and cursed him in every possible way, which made the court officials present unhappy. Tao Ge Lao stood in front of Jin Jiashu without any hesitation and refuted Sun Yongping. Then, with the tacit consent of the emperor and the empress dowager, the guards took Sun Yongping, who had once again lost his manners in front of the emperor, away. Sun Ge Lao had to repeatedly apologize to the emperor and the empress dowager for his eldest son's actions.

The Queen Mother did not comment, so Tao Ge Lao asked the Emperor to take back the badges that allowed Sun Ge Lao and his son to enter the palace, and to dismiss the two Sun family members who were originally serving in the imperial guards. The Emperor readily accepted his cousin's suggestion, and said that he would be magnanimous and would not argue with the old minister, and told Sun Ge Lao to just go back to his hometown and retire. But before he could say anything about the measures to be taken to favor the old minister, he showed a tired and weak look, and the Queen Mother immediately gave orders to dismiss the ministers and clan members, and then took the emperor back to the palace to rest.

With such an episode, naturally no one would be so tactless as to plead for Sun Ge Lao. Even his most loyal followers did not have time to speak, and could only secretly persuade him to rest assured that when the emperor's health improved a little, they would try to intercede and invite Sun Ge Lao back to the cabinet. Sun Ge Lao said nothing at the time, but just looked coldly at Jin Jiashu and the witnesses such as the Jin and Hu families, and then left. It is said that when he left the palace gate that day, he took off the crown on his head and left in his official uniform.

After that, the Sun family closed the door to visitors, but many people came and went through the side door and the back door every day. No one knew what they were doing in private. Sun Ge Lao reported illness and invited the imperial physician to come to his home. The result of the imperial physician's diagnosis was that he was indeed ill. Sun Yongping used this as an excuse to delay the father and son's journey back home. The emperor did not urge him again. His health was really not good, and he did not have the energy to care about these things for the time being. As long as the Sun family could no longer hinder him from establishing a crown prince, he did not care whether Sun Ge Lao would leave the capital.

The next day, Tao Yue, the Minister of Rites, took action and quickly passed the issue of establishing a crown prince in the cabinet. The emperor immediately issued an order and the Ministry of Rites began to prepare for the ceremony of establishing a crown prince. The Minister of Rites still insisted that the seventh prince should be the crown prince. Tao Yue personally went to persuade him and finally persuaded him to give in and stop blocking the matter.

Until Haijiao sent this batch of family letters, the ceremony of establishing the crown prince was still in the preparation stage. The emperor was ill and did not seem to want to hold it too grandly, lest his physical strength could not support it. But even so, the necessary procedures had to be followed. The emperor had made up his mind and would never let anyone find an excuse to question the qualifications of the crown prince he favored to succeed to the throne, which gave the ambitious people in the royal family an opportunity to take advantage of it.

In order to prevent Prince Ji from causing trouble, he issued an edict while he was ill to reprimand Prince Ji for not being filial to his adoptive parents, and ordered him to stay at home and copy the "Book of Filial Piety". Even if Prince Ji was very anxious and wanted to make trouble everywhere, he could do nothing with this confinement order. Now, except for a few of his loyal followers who would go to Prince Ji's mansion every day to find him and say good things about him, no one in the whole capital believed that he could return to the royal family and become the crown prince.

It is said that his relationship with the biological sons of the Prince Ji has deteriorated rapidly. Originally, he was determined to return to the clan, and promised to take good care of his former brothers after he succeeded to the throne. Now all of this has become a bubble. He will also inherit the throne of the Prince Ji and take away the title and property that should have been inherited by the biological sons of the Prince Ji. How could the latter like him? In less than ten days, the reputation of the Prince Ji in the outside world has been quickly ruined. All the rumors about his dissolute behavior and bullying of men and women basically came from the Prince Ji's mansion. It is said that the censor has heard about this and plans to report him. If he is really convicted, I am afraid that he may not even be able to keep his position as the Prince Ji.

Hai Jiao has been having a very pleasant time in the capital recently. He took part in the military examination, and the test went very smoothly and his results were very good. Although his results were not as good as Zhou Yijun's, he could still rank in the 20th or 30th place. Up to the time he sent out this batch of letters, he had not received the official order to be appointed, but Zhou Yijun had told him that his future would definitely not be bad. If he was not assigned to a good place, General Zhou Si would transfer him to the Imperial Guard. In addition, General Tu Rongtu had also promised him that he could also use the relationship with the Eighth Prince to help him with Jin Jiashu's arrangements, and that he would also be assigned to the Imperial Guard, and it was possible that he would hold the same bannerman position as his second uncle Hai Chang'an.

Haijiao has a bright future. Recently, he has heard a lot of good news about the palace and the circles of the rich from his two good friends Zhou Yijun and Jin Jiashu. Compared with the information he knew in his previous life, he is in a good mood. He now feels that his future is bright. When he writes to his sister, he has the leisure to write as detailed and vivid as a vernacular novel, and then proudly brags to his sister that he actually has a talent for writing articles!

(End of this chapter)