Great Zhou Empire: Kill Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning

Chapter 46 Thousand Years of Regret (Special thanks to book friends 2023...8382 for their monthly votes!)

After more than a month of getting along, Mrs. Xunyang Fu Jinding has gradually accepted the arrangement of the Queen Mother and Emperor Chai Zongxun, and no longer cries and fights every day.

After discussing with Chai Zongxun, Empress Dowager Fu issued an order on July 12 to grant marriage to Fu Jinding and Li Shoujie. They ordered them to set off back to Luzhou three days later to get married, and rewarded them with a large number of treasures.

Li Shoujie was granted the title of General Huaihua, a third-grade military official, and Fu Jin was appointed as Lady of Luzhou.

At noon on July 15th, Empress Dowager Fu and Emperor Chai Zongxun gave them a banquet at the Huangyi Palace. After thanking them for their kindness, Li Shoujie was satisfied and took a team of hundreds of carriages to set off for Luzhou with Fu Jinding.

Not long after, Chai Zongxun was on his way back from practicing martial arts in the Xingwu Hall. The eunuch came to report that Li Tao, the second prime minister, and Wang Zhu, the Taifu, were asking for an audience.

Chai Zongxun immediately ordered the two of them to wait in Huangji Hall.

When Chai Zongxun returned to the Qingshou Hall, he took a bath and changed clothes in the presence of the palace ladies, and then drove to the Huangji Hall.

After seeing the ceremony, Chai Zong ordered the two of them to sit down.

Li Tao said:
"Your Majesty is extremely filial to your mother. Now that the Queen Mother and Your Majesty have granted marriage to Li Shoujie and Mrs. Luzhou, there is no obstacle to killing Zhao Kuangyi, the remnant of Zhao Ni's party!"

Wang Zhu said:
"Your Majesty, in accordance with your Majesty's decree, I have found all the relevant persons who participated or were involved in the murder of the late emperor that day, and have been taken to the capital and imprisoned in my private residence.

I have been waiting for His Majesty's summons for the past few days. "

Chai Zongxun felt a heavy feeling in his heart and said, "Bring them all here, I want to interrogate them personally."

Not long after, one of Zhao Kuangyi's confidants, Gao Qiong, and the other two were two middle-aged monks: Monk Shouneng and Monk Chiayi. The three of them were tied up and brought into the palace by dozens of imperial guards.

Chai Zongxun waved to the imperial guards and said, "Close the doors and windows and wait outside the hall."

After all the imperial guards closed the doors and windows and exited the palace, only a few close eunuchs such as Tang Qi and eight guards including Chen Jixing, captain of the imperial guard, were left in the palace to protect the safety of Emperor Chai Zongxun.

Chai Zongxun looked at the three people kneeling in the hall for a moment, feeling angry and sad at the same time:
"Father, I only have a few more years to unify the world and create a prosperous age of great martial arts.

The two Zhao brothers are both ungrateful and ungrateful. They have already conspired to seize power and usurp the throne! Not only did it harm my father, but it also harmed my country!
In the time and space of the previous life, the Zhao family self-castrated the martial spirit of China, and in the following generations, it has been deteriorating, declining, ignorant and backward for thousands of years.

The thief Zhao Da, I can still leave his whole body; the thief Zhao Er, I have to cut him into pieces with a thousand swords! "

Chai Zongxun looked at Gao Qiong and said sternly:

"Gao Qiong, Zhao Kuangyi sent you to contact the Buddhists in Youzhou and persuade them to mix poison into tea and give it to the people in the places where my father passed by, so that they, who didn't know the inside story, would offer tea when they greeted my father, thus harming my father? !”

Tang Qi, Chen Jixing and other eunuchs and imperial guards who were standing behind Chai Zongxun were all shocked when they heard about this.

Gao Qiong, who was kneeling in the hall, was shocked and said:
"Your Majesty, this is absolutely not the case! I have always been loyal to the late emperor, how could I do such an unconscionable thing?"

Wang Zhu, who was sitting not far away from the palace, shouted angrily:
"Gao Qiong! Do you still want to deny it? I have already examined these two monks clearly. They both said that you went to Youzhou to contact them during the Northern Expedition of the late emperor last year in the sixth year of Xiande (2)! Encourage them to come together! The late emperor was killed by poisoning!"

Gao Qiong knew that he would die if he admitted the matter, but he might survive if he refused to admit it, so he immediately denied it.

Li Tao shouted angrily:
"Gao Qiong, how dare you say that you are loyal to the late emperor?!

You are the number one confidant of the thief Zhao Kuangyi! Do you think that if you refuse to plead guilty, there will be no clues and His Majesty and we will not be able to find out the truth? "

Li Tao pointed to the two monks and said, "You two tell me."

Monk Shouneng and Monk Chiayi were sweating profusely. After hearing Li Tao's words, they looked at each other. Monk Shouneng looked at Chai Zongxun who was sitting on the throne of Yuchi and said:

"Your Majesty, Prime Minister Li and Taifu Wang said: As long as the poor monks tell the truth, your Majesty will be magnanimous and put the stability of the country first, and will not make any big move against our Buddhist sect. Is this true?"

Chai Zongxun snorted and said after a while:
"Even though my father has succeeded in rectifying Buddhism, I don't want to cause another bloody storm in our territory.

As long as you two honestly confess in full, I will only punish those who participated in the murder of my father, and the harm will not affect the entire Buddhist sect! "

Monk Shouneng and Monk Chiayi saluted together and said:
"How good! Everyone in Buddhism appreciates His Majesty's great virtue!"

Monk Shouneng continued:

"Your Majesty, in March of the sixth year of Xiande, Zhao Kuang's righteous relatives came to Fengchan Temple in Bianjing to find the poor monk, saying that he wanted the poor monk to introduce Buddhist people in Youzhou to him.

Because the Zhao brothers were friendly to our Buddhist family and donated gold and silver to me many times, the poor monk didn't think much about it at the time and referred Jiayi, the poor monk's former fellow disciple of the temple, to Zhao Kuangyi. "

After Monk Shouneng finished speaking, he clasped his hands together, closed his eyes and stopped talking.

The Chiayi monk sighed and said in a low voice:
"Your Majesty, Zhao Kuangyi compiled a secret letter and sent his confidant Gao Qiong to find the poor monk at Xiangguo Temple in Mozhou in April of the sixth year of Xiande.

In the letter, Zhao Kuangyi listed in detail the Buddhist temples that had been destroyed since Emperor Shizong banned Buddhism and forced monks and nuns to return to secular life. He asked the poor monks to help him distribute the high-quality tea brought by Gao Qiong through our Buddhist temples. The people of Ying, Mo, Yi and other three states were about to be recaptured by the late emperor's army.

The poor monk saw that his senior brother praised the Zhao brothers a lot in his letter, so he agreed without asking any more questions.

Not many days later, the late emperor indeed defeated the Khitan, surrendered and accepted the rebels, and recovered the three states. When the late emperor met with the people who were waiting for him in many places, he drank tea offered by the people in many places.

Within two days, the poor monk received the news that the late emperor fell ill in the military camp. More than half a month later, the poor monk received news that many people who donated tea that day fell ill one after another, and he learned that the tea was poisonous!

Your Majesty, the poor monk and others have committed serious sins. I only ask Your Majesty to spare my Buddhist disciples and not to engage in war again. Your Majesty's merits are immeasurable! "

After the Chiayi monk finished speaking, Yiheshi knelt on the ground and closed his eyes and fell into meditation.

After Chai Zongxun heard this, he glared at Gao Qiong and said:
"Traitor! What else do you have to say?!
If you confess honestly, I can leave a queen for your family. If you persist in your obsession and refuse to plead guilty, I will kill all nine members of your Gao family! The ancestral graves were destroyed! "

When Gao Qiong heard this, he collapsed on the jade floor of the hall with a pale face. In this era, the execution of the nine tribes is not the most frightening thing. What is even more frightening is the razing of ancestral graves.

After a long while, Gao Qiong cried:
"Your Majesty, the guilty minister will tell you everything he knows. I only ask that your majesty remember the golden words and leave a queen for the guilty minister's family!"

After crying for a long time, Gao Qiong said:

"Ever since Zhao Kuangyin was young, he joined Taizu's tent as a personal soldier and witnessed Taizu's "yellow robe" incident, the two of them had the dream of one day ruling the world.

After the late emperor succeeded to the throne, he favored the two of them more and more. He even promoted Zhao Da to several levels, which made the Zhao brothers' ambitions even more intense.

Since the late emperor implemented the ban on Buddhism, the Zhao brothers had many secret discussions with their confidants Zhao Pu and other criminal officials, and finally decided to use the hands of the common people to poison the late emperor, and then hid a wooden sign "checking the emperor" on his way back. The late emperor's overall plan to become suspicious of Zhang Yongde and Li Chongjin, who were relatives of the emperor! "

(End of this chapter)