A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 226: Conflict
The third year of Taishi
As the Han Emperor favored Zhao Jieyu, she finally gave birth to the prince Liu Fuling fourteen months pregnant this year.

The Han Emperor was overjoyed and named Zhao Jieyu's palace gate "Yao Mu Gate" because it matched the number of months of pregnancy before Emperor Yao was born. It sent a signal to the outside world that Liu Che wanted to replace the prince Liu Zhi with Liu Fuling, which led to the increasingly fierce struggle between the anti-prince faction and the pro-prince faction.

The pro-prince faction mainly relied on the officials of the Wei family and supported the legitimate son inheritance system. In addition, the prince repeatedly advised the Han emperor to lighten the corvee and pay less taxes, reduce military expenditures, and stop building palaces. It gained the support of many Confucian officials, and almost The sound occupied two-thirds of the hall.

The anti-principal faction, mainly composed of Jiang Chong, a close official of the emperor who had offended the prince, and the Legalist lineage that had been suppressed, tried to get the support of Jiang Chong's party by getting closer to Jiang Chong, and become the mainstream of the court again.

There are also some flatterers who wanted to gain wealth because the Han emperor was old. Since the prince Liu Zhi was very clear about their purpose, he repeatedly opposed the Han emperor to get close to them, making them a faction that opposed the prince.

Now, the Inner Dynasty was almost controlled by Jiang Chong's party who relied on the trust of the Han Emperor. The other doctors and servants who disobeyed Jiang Chong were ostracized or did not dare to go against them. Even if they became the emperor's personal servants, they would not dare to If you say anything bad to them, you will be dismissed from your post or even imprisoned soon.

The outer dynasty is dominated by the Wei clan. The current prime minister is Gongsun He, and his wife is Wei Qing's sister Wei Junru, who is also Huo Qubing's stepfather. Therefore, he is favored by the Han Emperor and Empress Wei, and is a natural prince of the clan. A staunch supporter of the prince.

The rest, such as the Bai family, and other sporadic officials who did not join any faction, were probably because they were closer to the prince because of his behavior and personality, and generally would not object to the prince's words and actions.

The officials who relied on Jiang Chong and others became marginalized people.

The fourth year of Taishi (the first year of Zhenghe)
The Han Emperor fell ill repeatedly, which frightened Jiang Chong and his party, who relied on the Han Emperor for all their power. In addition, they had offended the prince and were regarded by the prince as the source of harm to the world, so they gathered together and prepared to take action first. .

After analysis, they decided to cut off one of the prince's arms first and identified the target as Prime Minister Gongsun He.

As they took advantage of the rights of the embroidered clothes messenger, they continued to dig out information about Gongsun He, and the breakthrough point was his son Gongsun Jingsheng.

Before Gongsun He became the prime minister, he was the servant of Taichang Mansion. After he was promoted as prime minister by the Han Emperor, his son Gongsun Jingsheng succeeded his father as the servant. However, due to his surly character, arrogance and extravagance, he often violated laws and regulations, but he was always punished by Gongsun. He suppressed it.

After extensive investigation, the Embroidered Clothes Envoy discovered that in addition to being lawless, he also had a history of diverting military funds without request. Military expenses were the most sensitive issue for the Han Emperor, so Gongsun Jingsheng arbitrarily used the military funds of the Northern Army to the tune of 1,000 yuan. The messenger's secret message of nine million yuan appears at the top of several cases of Emperor Han.

Originally, the embroidered messengers were set up by the Han Emperor to monitor whether local officials were doing their best to suppress bandits. But after the Han emperor used it, he found it very useful, so he kept it and even extended their scope of authority.

This allowed them to secretly investigate officials at all levels in Guanzhong, and directly report the emperor's records without going through the Prime Minister's Office.

The Xiu Yi Zhizhi has two officers, named Xiu Yi Zhizhi, and there are two of them. One is in charge of the Xiu Yi Zhizhi, who is responsible for the Xiu Yi Zhizhi in Guanzhong. Xiu Yi Zhizhi is Jiang Chong; Xiu Yi pointed out that it was a violent victory.

"It's simply disrespectful. Jiang Chong, go and have Gongsun Jingsheng imprisoned by me, and let the Tingwei Mansion examine it carefully to see if there are any problems." Emperor Han said angrily.

"Here!" Jiang Chong was overjoyed, knowing that the matter was done.

With the establishment of the embroidered clothes envoys, due to their authority, they had many contacts with Tingwei's mansion. At first, the embroidered clothes envoys were not strong, but Tingwei was able to enforce the law impartially.

However, as the Embroidered Clothes Messenger was established for longer and longer, and with the trust of the Han Emperor, its power became more and more powerful. The influence of the Embroidered Clothes Messenger continued to increase in the Tingwei Mansion.

Until Jiang Chong took office, he began to consolidate power and win over court officials. He successfully replaced Tingwei with someone close to him, making Tingwei's Mansion almost a subordinate agency of the Embroidered Clothes Envoy.

Therefore, no one who entered Tingwei's mansion after being reported by the embroidered messenger came out intact. Therefore, Gongsun Jingsheng's crime was quickly confirmed.

Gongsun He knew that his son was imprisoned. It happened that the Han Emperor issued an edict to urgently arrest Yangling hero Zhu Anshi, so Gongsun He asked the Han Emperor to let him be responsible for hunting down Zhu Anshi to atone for his son's sin. Out of emotion, the Han Emperor His request was granted.

The second year of Zhenghe
Under Gongsun He's almost crazy pursuit, he was successfully captured in Nanyang County.

March 10
The thieves from Nanyang County personally escorted Zhu Shi'an to Beijing and took him to the prison of Tingwei Mansion.

That night, a mysterious man entered Zhu Shian's cell. After the two talked for a long time, the mysterious man left.

eleventh day

Gongsun He personally interrogated Zhu Shian.

"Who is in the hall!" Gongsun He slapped the tree and shouted.

Zhu Shian held his head high and looked down upon Gongsun He's official authority.

"You and I, this person despises the court and fights with me for thirty more times!"

Just as the officials on the left and right took action.

"Slow down!" Zhu Shi'an said.

Gongsun He waved his hand and the officials on the left and right retreated: "Zhu Shi'an, you have been captured by the truth. What's the point of telling it or not? It's better to tell what you did happily, maybe you can avoid a lot of physical pain. ." Zhu Shi'an did not answer, but said with a smile: "The Prime Minister is going to bring disaster to the whole family!"

Gongsun He felt a little uneasy and said, "Why do you say this?"

Zhu Shian turned his head and said nothing.

The more Gongsun He watched, the more uneasy he became. He immediately asked people to take Zhu Shi'an back to the cell and go to find out the news himself.

"Your Majesty, this is a letter written by the criminal Zhu Shi'an in prison. I thought it was a serious matter, so I gave it to your Majesty directly without telling the prime minister." Jiang Chong held Zhu Shi'an's autographed letter and handed it to the Han Emperor.

The Emperor of the Han Dynasty opened it and read it carefully: ""Gongsun Jingsheng had an affair with Princess Yangshi; and when he learned that Your Majesty was going to Ganquan Palace, he asked the wizard to bury a puppet on His Majesty's private road, curse Your Majesty, and utter evil words. Word. "

"Bang!" The Han Emperor threw the bamboo slips on top of several cases down the hall, "It simply undermines the majesty of the royal family."

"No wonder Gongsun He went to arrest Zhu Shi'an in such a hurry. It turned out that he wanted to kill someone and silence him. Jiang Chong, immediately go and put the prime minister and his son in the sky prison, and give me a good trial to see if this is true."

"Here!"

12th

Prime Minister Gongsun He was arrested and imprisoned. After investigation, the charges were found to be true. In anger, the Han Emperor ordered Gongsun He and his son to die, and destroyed the Gongsun family. At the same time, he also implicated another child born to Princess Yangshi and Queen Wei Zifu. A daughter, Princess Zhuyi, and Wei Qing's eldest son, Mr. Wei. In order to protect the reputation of the royal family, the Han Emperor ordered them all to be killed.

As a result, Wei's political allies within the court were all lost, and the prince's party suffered huge losses.

April
The Emperor of the Han Dynasty appointed Liu Quyou, the governor of Zhuo County, as prime minister and granted him the title of Marquis of Peng.

Liu Quyou came to Beijing to take up his post. After paying homage to the Han Emperor, he went to Jiang Chong's residence to pay a visit without stopping. This shows Jiang Chong's power.

May
Emperor Han fell ill again. Tormented by his illness, he became increasingly moody. In order to relieve his illness, he became more and more superstitious about alchemists and sacrifices. Therefore, in the capital, alchemists and various kinds of witches were very popular. Most of these people were from the left. The fantasy and sorcery at the side of the road confuses everyone and does anything.

In order to save their lives, the beauties in the palace invited some witches into the palace to teach them how to avoid disasters, and buried wooden figures in every room to perform sacrifices. Therefore, when they were jealous and quarreled with each other, they would take turns to accuse each other of cursing the emperor and being treasonous.

Due to his sensitivity to witchcraft, the Han emperor was furious and executed those who were accused. Hundreds of concubines, maids, and implicated ministers died as a result.

Because of illness and many disagreements with his son, the Han Emperor became more and more suspicious. On this day, while taking a nap during the day, he dreamed that thousands of wooden men were holding sticks and wanted to attack him. He suddenly woke up. From then on, the Han Emperor felt Feeling unwell, confused, and memory loss.

As a close servant, Jiang Chong knew the situation of the Han Emperor very well. He felt that the Han Emperor's health was getting worse and worse, and he was afraid that he could not wait any longer, so he made a conspiracy, saying that the Han Emperor's illness was due to witchcraft. Caused by mischief.

The Han emperor had always favored Jiang Chong, and recently became superstitious about alchemists, so he sent Jiang Chong as an envoy to investigate the witchcraft case.

Jiang Chong led the Hu wizards to dig in the ground in search of wooden figures, and arrested those who used witchcraft to harm people, prayed at night, and claimed to see ghosts. He also ordered people to sprinkle blood on some places in advance, and then treated the victims with blood. The arrested people were interrogated and pointed out that the blood-stained areas were where they had harmed people with sorcery, and they were burned with iron pliers to force them to confess.

So the common people falsely accused each other of using witchcraft to harm others; the officials often accused others of being treasonous. From the Chang'an and Sanfu areas of the capital to various counties and countries, tens of thousands of people died as a result.

June
The Emperor of the Han Dynasty became increasingly suspicious as Jiang Chong continued to arrest and kill people. Jiang Chong believed that the time had come, so he ordered the Hu wizard Tan He to say: "There is poison in the palace. If you don't remove the poison, , Your Majesty’s illness will never recover.”

The Emperor of the Han Dynasty asked Jiang Chong to enter the palace, go deep into the palace, destroy the emperor's throne, and dig the ground to find poison. He also sent Han Shuo, the envoy of Dao, Zhang Gan, Huangmen Suwen and others to assist Jiang Chong.

Han Shuo, Zhang Gan, and Su Wen were all members of Jiang Chong's party, so Jiang Chong took the three of them, starting with the concubines' rooms in the harem that the Emperor of Han had paid little attention to, and then searched in sequence until they reached the Queen's Palace and the In the prince's palace, the floor was turned up vertically and horizontally, so that there was no room for the prince and queen to put their beds.

After doing all this, Jiang Chong said to the Han Emperor: "Although there are wooden figures in other places, I found the most wooden figures in the crown prince's palace. Not only that, but there are also words written on silk. The content is treason and unethical. I think it should be reported to Your Majesty."

When Jiang Chong was rummaging through the prince's womb, the prince Liu Zhi was on the spot. He saw with his own eyes that he found so many wooden figures. Knowing that this matter could not be solved, he asked the young master Shi De what should be done.

Shi De was afraid that he would be implicated and killed because he was the prince's teacher, so he told Liu: "Previously, Gongsun He and his son, the two princesses, and Wei and his wife were all accused of using witchcraft to harm people and were killed. Now, now The wizard and His Majesty's envoy dug out evidence from the palace. I don't know if it was placed by the wizard or if it actually existed. I couldn't explain it clearly.

I think His Highness can falsely pass on the imperial edict, arrest Jiang Chong and others and put them in jail, and thoroughly investigate their treacherous conspiracy. Moreover, Your Majesty is ill and is staying in Ganquan Palace. Neither the Queen nor the people you sent to greet Your Majesty have been able to see Your Majesty. It is not known whether His Majesty is still there, but the traitor dares to do this. Have you forgotten that the Prince of Qin Dynasty, Fusu, Is something wrong? "

Liu reportedly said: "How can I, a son, kill a minister without permission! It's better to go to Ganquan Palace to plead guilty, and maybe you can get away with it."

However, Jiang Chong was very anxious to seize Liu Zhi, and Liu Zhi really couldn't think of any other way, so he had to act according to Shi De's plan.

(End of this chapter)