Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 549
In less than a day, Dali Temple convicted Wang Chao of the crime of deceiving the emperor by breaking into the harem privately, and sent Tiao Chen to the palace.The voice of His Majesty's approval quickly came from the palace, and it was obvious that Wang Chao could no longer escape the end of being executed.

The civil and military officials easily guessed the reason why His Majesty asked Dali Temple to speed up the process of this matter. Naturally, it was not because of Wang Chao himself, nor because the case itself was simple, but because of the chief secretary of the Huaxia Weifu. Your Excellency, the powerful King Xiangfu, is on his way back to Kyoto from the northwest at this time.

If it is an ordinary courtier, His Majesty the Emperor will not care about it at all, but Ye Chen is not an ordinary courtier. He has too much power and personal ability, and has even become so big and strong that His Majesty the Emperor is for the future of the Song Dynasty. , must be considered.

Not to kill Wang Chao, simply put, His Majesty the Emperor is in trouble in front of the people of the world. To put it more complicatedly, the Emperor's authority and the dignity of the Son of Heaven do not allow him to soften his heart on this matter.However, His Majesty the Emperor must finish this matter before Ye Chen returns to the capital, so as to make these matters an irreversible fact.

The official yamen of Song State can be used to take prisoners.But in Kyoto, there are more places like this. Counting from the Yamen of the Kyoto Prefecture, there are as many as six Yamen with the right to take custody in Song Law.And the real criminals involved in the government, as well as those criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes, are often detained in the prisons of the Ministry of Punishment, the dungeon of Dali Temple, and the prisons of Huaxia Weifu.These places are the so-called sky prisons that the common people regard as abysses that always appear in storytelling stories.

However, since the establishment of the Huaxia Weifu, this spy, intelligence, and supervisory agency directly under the emperor has played a powerful and terrifying role in the government that has never been seen in previous dynasties. In the prison of the mansion, it will not be handed over to Dali Temple until the case is finalized by Dali Temple.Therefore, the hierarchy of the Huaxia Weifu prison gradually surpassed that of the Ministry of Punishment and Dali Temple, and it became a veritable heavenly prison.

But today Wang Chao is being held in the dungeon of Dali Temple.It is located on the side of the Yamen of Dali Temple. If you go out from the main entrance of the square and gloomy building, you only need to turn a corner to the side, and you will see the two extremely heavy iron gates. These are the main entrances for ordinary people to enter and exit.There is also a back door inside Dali Temple, which leads directly to the secret passage of the dungeon here. You only need to go back from the Daping courtyard behind Dali Temple, and you can go straight through a small door. This secret door is for convenience. Some prison officials or prison visitors who are inconvenient to be exposed to the public come in and out.

However, no matter which door you enter the prison of Dali Temple, the first scene you see is a deep passage. The cell responsible for guarding felons is deep underground, and the guards are extremely strict. There are things like robbery happening.

As the passage goes down, the air becomes stagnant, and the lights become dimmer. Although there is good ventilation equipment below, the Yamen of Dali Temple inherits the gloomy atmosphere of decades from the previous dynasty and the last week. miscellaneous.It always makes people feel an inexplicable sense of terror and suffocation.

Go down the passage to the deepest part, pass through several layers of ordinary sill houses, and arrive at the cells at the bottom of Dali Temple. The guards here are the strictest, and Wang Chao is being imprisoned here at this time.

At this time of night, even the prisoners in the dungeon were mostly asleep.Yuan Chongjun, the chief official of Dali Temple, suddenly appeared in front of the small gate of the Daping Courtyard behind Dali Temple. "Why is it late at night, my lord"

Before the prison chief could finish speaking, Yuan Chongjun waved his hand to interrupt, and said two words: "Open the door."

The head of the prison was stunned for a moment, feeling that his immediate superior's immediate superior seemed a little strange, but he didn't dare to disobey his order, and he didn't dare to ask any more questions, so he quickly opened the thick single-leaf iron door, ordered the jailer to lock the door, and then He personally took Yuan Chongjun in.

The ground is damp and dark, but there is no trace of moss on the walls of all the stone steps. It seems that Dali Temple has taken care of the place very carefully. The light yellow special bright oil torch is burning outside the deepest cell of the prison. The land of the underworld, like a ghost, shines clearly.

On the lowest floor, there were only four cells, which were dug out of the underground granite. The back of the wall was unknown how deep and thick it was. In front of the cell was a heavy subway door, which was much larger than the two doors at the main entrance of the prison. An iron door won't be too thin.

This is the most gloomy place in the dungeon of Dali Temple. If you are not a super felon or a senior official above the third rank, you are not eligible to be locked up here.Naturally, Wang Chao's official position is not enough, but because the crime he committed is related to His Majesty the Emperor, and he is the life and death brother of Ye Chen, the king of Xiangfu County, so he is also eligible to be imprisoned here.And at this moment, he happened to be the only one on this floor.

The iron door of the cell was very thick, and it was locked with a big iron lock, and the firelight shone in, and all the arrangements in the cell could be clearly seen.A bed, a basin of water, and a few things are not just weeds, rats, and sludge as people imagined. On the contrary, this cell is extremely clean, but it is too clean and simple, and not even a cockroach can be seen. Only.

This is understandable. The cases heard by Dali Temple are all criminal officials or relatives of the emperor. Some people are only temporarily imprisoned and will be released soon.Dali Temple naturally does not want to offend such a person.Naturally, Wang Chao was not in this case, but because of the relationship between Wang Chao and Ye Chen, Dali Temple also did not dare to neglect, otherwise it would be reported to the Xiangfu County King afterwards, and who knows if it would bring disaster to himself.However, Wang Chao's crime of deceiving the emperor involved His Majesty the Emperor, and Dali Temple did not dare to give Wang Chao any preferential treatment, it was just a normal standard.

At this time, Wang Chao was lying on the bed, breathing slowly. It seemed that there was nothing wrong with him, but if he listened carefully, he would find that there was a strange faint noise in Wang Chao's voice. There is something wrong with his voice. If the ghost doctor was here, he would be able to tell at a glance that Wang Chao's voice is hoarse. Not only can he not speak, he can't even utter a single sound.All thoughts in Wang Chao's heart were lost, he no longer had the desire to survive, and only thought that his wife, Qiniang, could escape.

Not long after, the cell boss guarded the entrance of the ground floor with some doubts. Dali Temple Minister Yuan Chongjun walked to the innermost cell alone, and began to talk with Wang Chao who was locked inside and stared at the cell door in a daze.

Just as the prison boss was standing at the entrance of the passage, yawning and starting to feel sleepy, Yuan Chongjun came out a little tired.

...

...

The head of the cell sent Yuan Chongjun out of the cell, watched Yuan Chongjun leave, his back disappeared into the darkness, and suddenly found that the old man's figure seemed to be a little thinner than usual, but he didn't take it seriously, after all, it was winter , Wear more clothes and less clothes, wear thick clothes and thin clothes, it seems that the body shape is very different.However, he immediately realized that this high-ranking old man came here alone, and he didn't bring a few entourages to protect him at night.

This thought just flashed through the prison head's mind. He yawned without thinking deeply, shook his head, locked the iron door firmly, and went back to sleep again.

I don't know the years in the mountains, and I don't know the time in the underground. I don't know how long it has passed, but those bright oil torches are still burning at the expense of their lives.There was a sound of footsteps on the stone steps behind the cell, and following the sound of footsteps, the head of the cell walked down with some people.

The sky prison of Dali Temple is divided into two parts, the south prison and the north prison, with two corner gates in the east and west.Prisoners who are released or interrogated go through the east corner gate, also known as Qinglong gate; prisoners who are executed, go through the west corner gate, also known as Baihu gate.Many officials know this rule, so when a prisoner is escorted out of the West Corner Gate, his face is ashen-colored and his legs go limp.Wang Chao has followed Cao Bin on the battlefield since he was 16 years old. He is used to seeing life and death. In addition, he knew that he would die. Even if he knew this, apart from unwillingness and worry about Qiniang, he didn't have much fear of death. .

The time has finally arrived.There is no wind in winter, and the sun shines warmly on all the buildings in the capital of Song Dynasty.The group of people walking out of the dungeon stood in the morning light, each of them squinted their eyes subconsciously. Yuan Chongjun, the Minister of Dali Temple standing at the door of the cell, looked a little complicated, but he was full of energy. It seemed that he had a good rest last night.At this time, he waved his hand lightly, a prison car stopped at the gate of the sky prison, several guards put Wang Chao, whose expression was already a little numb, on it, and more than 300 Dali Temple officials surrounded the prison car where Wang Chao was detained Toward Caishikou, Wang Chao walked on the road of death.

Yuan Chongjun raised his head, and saw countless dark clouds approaching out of nowhere, quickly piled up in the sky above the capital, covering the red sun that had just risen in the early days, and allowing a darkness to cover everything in Kaifeng City.

Another winter snow is about to fall.

The snow fell naturally all over the sky, and the trees and roofs on both sides of the streets and alleys in Kyoto were soon covered with snow and covered with silver, which proved the coldness of the snow and the coldness of the winter wind.

The so-called "auspicious snow heralds a good year", most of the rural farmers, landlords, and officials of the Zhengshitang and the Third Division will feel happy when they see this kind of weather, but the Limin people who live in the city and work hard to make a living are extremely tired of this kind of heavy snow weather. , because 'one winter snows for several days', this not only means that their respective businesses are affected, but also means that they have to spend more firewood or carbon money, not to mention that no one likes the cold the body feels.

The vermilion palace walls are ignorant, unaware of warmth and coldness, but silently and indifferently welcome the falling of these snowflakes.The snowflakes were also covered by the bright vermilion of the majestic imperial city, and they were dressed in white.

(End of this chapter)