I, the prince, only want to be deposed.

Chapter 206: Twelve Years Old, Beating His Brother
The Ministry of Agriculture.

"Mr. Kong, your fellow countryman Fan Yuan, will there be any trouble?"

Dongguo Xianyang fell into a state of anxiety again. Although he was a little older than Kong Jin, he was much less shrewd and had a weaker state of mind. Every time he encountered something, he found it difficult to keep calm.

Emperor Liu Che did not make public the news of the arrest of Jingzhao Yin Fan Yuan, nor did he send a new official to replace him for the time being.

Therefore, this matter was not heard by Kong Jin and Dongguo Xianyang until recently.

"Brother Dongguo, don't worry."

Kong Jinze was calm and composed,

"Fan Yuansu and I have no overt contact, so you won't find anything just by investigating."

"Besides, I have done a great favor to his family. When he was in Nanyang, he was able to be selected as a civil official and later promoted to Jingzhao Yin because of my secret support. Just based on this friendship, he will definitely not betray me."

"Besides, I have the leverage over the lives of his entire clan in my hand, and he won't dare to sell me out, so there's no need to worry."

After hearing this, Dongguo Xianyang felt a little relieved, but he still frowned and said:

"But Lord Kong, Fan Yuan was escorted to the Prince's residence a few days ago. If it was someone else, it would be fine, but this prince is not an easy person to deal with. Lord Kong has seen everything he did before. God knows what unheard-of methods he will use on Fan Yuan. What if Fan Yuan can't resist?"

"Haha, is it possible that the Crown Prince is better at torture than the Imperial Court?"

Kong Jin laughed, as if he had heard a great joke.

"Besides, torture is only effective against those with weak wills. It will have no effect on those who have already committed suicide or have no choice but to commit suicide."

"but……"

Dongguo Xianyang wanted to say something else.

Kong Jin interrupted him, took a sip of tea and said with a smile:
"Okay, Brother Dongguo, you and I have been through a lot together over the years. Have you ever been through any storms?"

"That's what Confucius said..."

Dongguo Xianyang finally stopped saying anything and sat quietly in the seat below Kong Jin.

at this time.

"Dangdang!"

With a loud bang, the door of the department was suddenly kicked open.

Dozens of armored and armed warriors forced their way in and surrounded the two men in an instant.

"?!"

Kong Jin and Dongguo Xianyang were startled and stood up quickly.

Kong Jin quickly regained his composure, maintained the momentum of a Nine Minister, and frowned as he looked at the warriors:

"Whose subordinates are you? How dare you enter the Ministry of Agriculture with weapons? Do you have an imperial decree from His Majesty?"

The words have not yet fallen.

Zhao Yu, the chief judge of the Imperial Court, had already stepped over the threshold and walked in. He glanced coldly at Kong Jin and Dongguo Xianyang:
"Mr. Kong Nongling, Mr. Dongguo Nongcheng, I, on the orders of His Majesty, invite you two to stay in the Imperial Prison for a few days. You'd better not refuse a toast and drink a penalty."

Dongguo Xianyang was so frightened upon hearing this that his legs went weak and his body began to sway uncontrollably.

But Kong Jin was able to keep his composure at this time. He was silent for a moment, then smiled and bowed to Zhao Yu and asked:
"Zhao Zhengjian, I don't know what crime the two of us have committed, but why does His Majesty suddenly want to throw us into the Imperial Prison?"

"Fan Yuan has already confessed, why should Kong Nongling continue to play dumb?"

Zhao Yu asked back.

Hearing this, Dongguo Xianyang turned pale and collapsed to the ground. Even so, he did not forget to look at Kong Jin in surprise:
"Mr. Kong?! Didn't you just say..."

"This is impossible!"

Kong Jinyi's face changed drastically. Even now he still refused to believe that this was true.

But if this was false, why would the Chief Justice suddenly come to arrest someone, and why would Zhao Yu say such a thing?
He had no choice but to believe the facts before him.

Kong Jin asked unwillingly:

"Zhao Zhengjian, for the sake of our working together, can you please let me die knowingly? Fan Yuan confessed under Liu Ju's command."

"good."

"What did Liu Ju do to Fan Yuan?"

"No comment."

"Hehehehe...hahahaha!"

Kong Jin suddenly laughed wildly towards the sky. He began to stagger as he laughed. His entire face seemed to have aged by dozens of years in an instant.
"This is God's will to kill me. I have been cautious in every step of my life, but God has sent down such a huge change. How can I fight against God!"

"Brother Dongguo, this is our fate. We can't win by fighting, so we have to accept it..."

While speaking, Kong Jin suddenly reached his hand into his clothes, and when he came out again, there was a shining dagger in his hand.

"Stop him!"

Zhao Yu shouted hurriedly upon seeing this.

But at the same time, the dagger had been stabbed into Kong Jin's left chest, and blood gushed out like a fountain...

……

Bowang Garden, Qiufang.

Before he knew it, several days had passed since Kong Jin and Dongguo were executed in Xianyang, and Fan Yuan had long been sent back to the imperial prison. As for the subsequent interrogation and confiscation of property, there was no need for Liu Ju to intervene. Everything returned to peace.

Liu Ju got up at noon as usual, and was enjoying breakfast after washing up.

Guo Zhen, the prince's assistant, then brought a wooden box.

"Where did this report come from?"

Liu Ju opened the wooden box and found several thick scrolls of bamboo slips inside. He did not look through them but just looked at Guo Zhen and asked questions.

Guo Zhen bowed and replied:

"This was given to Your Highness by Wei Kang before he left the palace early this morning. He said that it might contain something Your Highness would like to know."

"cousin?"

Liu Ju couldn't help feeling a little surprised.

Originally, he thought that this was a report sent by the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Justice, in order to report to him the progress or summary of the reform of the state-run salt and iron industry.

After all, judging from the number and thickness of the bamboo slips, there must be a lot of content inside.

As for this kind of stuff, Liu Ju has always been too lazy to read it. He usually asks Guo Zhen to review it on his behalf, pick out some key issues and summarize a brief version so that he can understand the general idea.

Anyway, even if the people below didn't say it, Liu Ju knew that such reports were made in duplicate.

One copy was sent directly to Liu Che, and the other copy was sent to him, the so-called "co-organizer of the salt and iron state-run reform."

Therefore, the general direction was still under Liu Che's control.

With Liu Che, an emperor of all ages, to back him up, he didn't have to worry about any omissions even if he didn't review it personally.

On the contrary, Wei Kang...

Liu Ju couldn't think of what this cousin needed to report to him, and why did he produce so many bamboo slips at once? He even suspected that Wei Kang had some bad intentions, just like he did in his previous life when he gave study tutoring books to his relatives' naughty kids.

But speaking of it, I haven't seen Wei Kang much in recent days.

Ji Ping said that Wei Kang seemed to have suddenly become a different person recently. Not only did he no longer sleep until noon, but he also went out early and came back late every day. He looked very busy, and no one knew what he was busy with...

Thinking about this, Liu Ju finally picked up the bamboo slips and looked at the contents with curiosity:

[Han Ling, the only daughter of Longyi Marquis Han Shuo, was born to his concubine Zhao and is now seventeen years old.]

[Birth date: Guichou, Xinmao, Xinwei, Jihai. Born at 12.3 jin. Don’t cry…]

[There are three wet nurses in total: Zhang, Chen, and Tian. They are all from Chang'an, commoners, and their ancestors have no family background...]

[Among the ten maids, Chun Tao is the closest to Han Ling. She was Han Ling’s study companion when he was seven years old…]

【…】

After reading a passage, Liu Ju finally understood what was recorded in the box of bamboo slips.

This turned out to be all of Han Ling's information from the day he was born to this point. Judging from the level of detail, it seemed that not only Han Ling, but almost all people who had close contact with him had their information recorded and undergone detailed investigation!

Could it be that Wei Kang has been going out early and coming back late these days just to do these things?
Didn’t I tell him that day that there was no need to check?

And this Han Ling, he weighed 12.32 pounds when he was born. What the hell… Nezha from One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes?
Oh, right!
One catty at that time, converted into the weight unit of later times, seems to be 256 grams, which is about half a catty. Therefore, this number needs to be halved, which means that Han Ling actually weighed only more than six catties when he was born, which is within the normal range.

Liu Ju was speechless.

I also noticed that there was a neatly folded piece of white silk on one side of the wooden box.

He took out the piece of white silk and shook it open to examine it. On it was actually a portrait of a woman.

This portrait is of...

Although there is a nose and eyes, the facial features are fairly regular and the figure is fairly well-proportioned, this kind of painting is at best a simple sketch, and the painting level is limited, so it is impossible to tell whether it is beautiful or ugly. It can only be said that it is a portrait of a woman who is not ugly.

But there is nothing much to say about this. Due to the limitations of painting materials and tools, the painting skills of the Han Dynasty were just like that and it was impossible to reflect too many details.

"This cousin..."

Even Liu Ju had to admit that Wei Kang must have put a lot of effort into this matter.

After all, the household registration system of this era was not complete, it was inconvenient to use bamboo slips to record things, and there was no system support such as big data. It was very difficult to thoroughly investigate a person's historical background and social relations.

In order for Wei Kang to come up with information of such detail, he must have conducted a large number of visits and investigations, and had to use a variety of means to verify it.

Even though the Wei family and the Han family already had some old friendship, he still had contact with Han Ling's brother.

It is still not easy to do this...

It can be seen that Wei Kang is not as bad as his uncle said.

Unfortunately, it was all in vain. Liu Ju had not allowed him to investigate before, which meant that he had already rejected this marriage in his heart.

While thinking about these things, Liu Ju did not put down the bamboo slips.

After all, these were detailed information that my cousin had painstakingly obtained, and his labor should not be wasted. Besides, biographies were not boring to him.

When he was taking history classes in his previous life, as soon as the books were handed out, he would first look for the small print on each page.

Therefore, these things sent by Wei Kang are good for killing time...

[Precociously intelligent, well-informed, and with a strong memory, he was able to read the Five Classics by the age of ten and could debate with his teacher without losing...]

[At the age of twelve, he beat his brother Han Xing...]

(End of this chapter)