DLWAV CH142

In September of the sixth year of Jianzhao, exactly one month after the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng brazenly raised an army to rebel, the Third Prince led his grand army to annihilate the eighty thousand troops of Changzhou outside the city walls in one fell swoop, and captured the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng alive.

When the news reached the capital, the entire court and the public naturally erupted into a wave of joy and encouragement, which goes without saying.

Except for the Crown Prince’s faction and the remaining three vassal kings.

The Crown Prince’s faction couldn’t be happy because they all knew perfectly well that the Crown Prince would likely be deposed on the very day Prince Rui returned triumphant to the court.

How could the remaining three vassal kings possibly be happy? After all, in less than two short months, half of their fellow vassal kings had been wiped out by the imperial court.

Right now, they only wanted to know what exactly Emperor Jianzhao was scheming.

And those important court ministers had clearly also guessed their thoughts from the unusual movements in the various vassal kings’ fiefdoms.

Therefore, they sought out Emperor Jianzhao at the first opportunity.

“May we ask how Your Majesty plans to deal with the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng?”

Emperor Jianzhao’s brows instantly furrowed.

He wanted to say: Kill them all, of course.

After all, he had absolutely no brotherly affection for these insatiably greedy vassal kings.

Furthermore, as long as the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng were not dead for even a single day, they could potentially stir up waves again.

But such thoughts definitely could not be shown on his face.

After all, he did not want to earn a bad reputation for brutally murdering his own flesh and blood.

Moreover, the imperial court had just fought two major wars in a row. Although the court ultimately achieved victory both times, its losses were not small. Not to mention the troops and horses, just speaking of money and grain, the national treasury’s current reserves were less than half of what they were.

Not to mention they also had to guard against Prince Wu’s manor.

So at this time, no matter what, they could not start another war.

There was only one thing: the crimes of the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng were much greater than those of the Prince of Luoyang. After all, the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng were the masterminds behind a rebellion, and over the years, to amass wealth, they had murdered an unknown number of innocent commoners.

But he had stubbornly had his way and killed the Prince of Qinghe. (The Prince of Luoyang, in fact, merely gave him a green hat and provided some rations and troops to the Prince of Qinghe under threat.)

Therefore, if he were to let the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng go now, he was afraid it would be difficult to convince the public.

Seeing the change in Emperor Jianzhao’s expression, those important court ministers immediately breathed a sigh of relief; as long as Emperor Jianzhao hadn’t let it go to his head, it was fine.

The Grand Secretary of the Cabinet immediately stepped forward and said, “This subject believes that the crimes of the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng cannot be redeemed even by ten thousand deaths. Therefore, we should distribute all their family wealth to the commoners of Changzhou, and then banish their entire families to the imperial mausoleum to clear the wasteland, with the grain produced used to relieve the poor for all eternity…”

Once the commoners received the family wealth of the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng, they certainly wouldn’t have any more complaints.

There was only one point: they had confiscated over six million taels worth of family wealth from the homes of the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng. Even if they only distributed their openly visible wealth to the commoners of Changzhou, that was still over three million taels of silver.

Emperor Jianzhao was naturally reluctant to part with it.

But right now, they didn’t have any other choice.

Emperor Jianzhao: “Just handle it as the Grand Secretary has said.”

But they never expected that that very night, news would arrive saying that the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng had committed suicide out of fear of punishment.

Closely following this, more news arrived saying that the Ministry of Revenue had suddenly discovered that back when the Prince of Yun was observing politics in the Ministry of Revenue, he had indulged his subordinates in embezzling over a million taels of silver from the national treasury.

Then, officials from the Ministry of Rites came to report that the envoys sent to the capital by the Prince of Yun, the Prince of Shu, and the Prince of Minjiang—nominally to present congratulatory gifts to Emperor Jianzhao, but actually to spy for information—had all fled overnight.

Bang!

The green-headed name tag in Emperor Jianzhao’s hand fell straight to the ground.

Before long, the Grand Secretary and all the other important court ministers had also arrived.

“Your Majesty—”

One just had to think about it to know: if the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng wanted to die, they should have committed suicide the moment Changzhou City was breached. Why wait until now?

So there was definitely something fishy about their deaths.

Emperor Jianzhao: “I did not do this.”

The Grand Secretary and the other important court ministers naturally knew this: “Then who could have done this?”

At almost the exact same time, a name rose in their minds.

Emperor Jianzhao’s eyes nearly split open in anger: “Wu Ruize—”

Who else could dream of the imperial court descending into chaos but Wu Ruize?

Not only that.

Don’t forget, the evidence of the Prince of Qinghe’s rebellion was handed over to the court by him.

In that case, the incident where the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng colluded with mountain bandits to scrape off the people’s fat and marrow, ultimately leading to the commoners traveling thousands of miles to the capital to file an imperial lawsuit—was that also single-handedly directed by him?

The Grand Secretary immediately said, “Your Majesty, the most urgent task at hand is to pacify those remaining vassal kings to prevent the Great Yang from falling into another civil war.”

“As for Wu Ruize’s side…”

At this time, they certainly couldn’t touch him—

Because right now, these were all just their speculations. They had absolutely no evidence to prove that the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng were killed by Wu Ruize.

Otherwise, if those vassal kings weren’t pacified and Wu Ruize rebelled again, the imperial court would face a situation of scattered morale and enemies attacking from both the front and rear.

Thinking of this, Emperor Jianzhao could only say hatefully, “Immediately dispatch envoys to the fiefdoms of the various major vassal kings; you must pacify them.”

The Grand Secretary: “Yes.”

However, it was already too late.

Before the envoys sent by the court had even stepped out of the capital region, news came from the north saying that the Prince of Yun, the Prince of Shu, and the Prince of Minjiang had all rebelled.

Emperor Jianzhao’s face completely cracked.

And so, Prince Rui, who was leading the grand army and was about to step into the capital region, hadn’t even had the time to celebrate his impending ascension to the position of Crown Prince with monstrous merits, when he received a dispatch from the court ordering him to immediately lead the army to the north to quell the rebellion.

In fact, back when the Prince of Yingchuan and Prince Cheng had rebelled without hesitation, Yao Wenju and the others had already been somewhat surprised.

They didn’t expect that the Prince of Yun, the Prince of Shu, and the others would actually also just rebel at the drop of a hat.

Especially the Prince of Yun and the Prince of Shu.

After all, their strength was not even equal to that of the Prince of Qinghe.

Moreover, the imperial court had just quelled the Prince of Qinghe, the Prince of Yingchuan, and Prince Cheng; its prestige and power were at their peak.

So Yao Wenju and the others originally thought they would have to use some stratagems to force the Prince of Yun and the Prince of Shu to rebel.

Wu Chuyao, being in the thick of the game, was the first to react. She took a deep breath before she managed to suppress the hatred in her heart: “Isn’t it all because their founding Emperor Taizu, Ji Xiangming, set a good precedent? So they all feel that as long as their methods are ruthless and malicious enough, they can sit on the throne.”

This was the main reason why the Prince of Qinghe, the Prince of Yingchuan, Prince Cheng… one by one all wanted to rebel.

“Even more so because they clearly know that Emperor Jianzhao’s methods are even more ruthless than theirs, so they dare not gamble on whether Emperor Jianzhao truly wants to reduce the vassal kings’ power or not.”

“It just so happens that the imperial court has just finished fighting two major wars and has suffered severe internal attrition. If they raise an army now, they might still have a chance of survival. Otherwise, when the court pacifies us in the future, they will truly only have a dead end.”

In other words, the fact that these vassal kings were rebelling one after another actually had little to do with them.

At most, they just acted as a catalyst, pushing those vassal kings to rebel ahead of time, and pushing the imperial court to resolve them ahead of time.

For a moment, they didn’t know whether they should thank those vassal kings for saving them a lot of effort, or laugh at themselves for how much importance they had attached to this matter before.

Ao Ruize merely said: “So moving forward, we must act even more cautiously.”

Yao Wenju and the others immediately restrained their expressions: “Yes.”

Then, as if thinking of something, Yao Wenju and the others turned their heads to look at Wu Chuyao.

Wu Chuyao only said: “In this upcoming period, I will reduce the number of times I go to the male brothel.”

In just a short span of a month and a half, she was already able to say such things openly and calmly.

The Little Milk Dumpling was endlessly happy.

It just knew its method was viable.

However, Yao Wenju and the others still couldn’t help but exchange glances.

After all, their mindsets had long been set in stone; wanting to change them in a short period of time was still a bit difficult.

Most importantly, they hadn’t expected Ao Ruize to actually be tolerant and loving toward Wu Chuyao to this degree.

They felt that even if Ao Ruize passed the throne to Wu Chuyao in the future, they wouldn’t be surprised anymore.

And the reason Wu Chuyao said she would reduce the number of times she went to the male brothel, instead of saying she wouldn’t go anymore.

Was mainly because, ever since she went to that male brothel a few times, she discovered that out of the seven or eight courtesans she frequently requested, two had been bought off by someone.

Even though they thought their way of digging for information was very clever, she had still noticed it right away.

She just didn’t make it public, that was all.

Therefore, if she continued to go to the male brothel at this time, Emperor Jianzhao and his people actually wouldn’t make a move on her.

—After all, Ao Ruize was the head of Prince Wu’s manor. Even if they killed her, it wouldn’t cause too much of a loss to Prince Wu’s manor.

On the contrary, if she was still running to the male brothel every couple of days at a time like this, Emperor Jianzhao and his people would nine times out of ten despise her even more, and consequently believe even more that they could fish out information about Prince Wu’s manor from her.

Which is to say, she could perhaps use this opportunity to pass some fake information to Emperor Jianzhao and confuse them.

Ao Ruize happily said: “Alright.”

And just as Ao Ruize and the others were discussing their upcoming plans, on the other side, Dr. Li came knocking on the door.

Because Emperor Jianzhao had sent another secret missive urging them to act as quickly as possible.

What could Jiang Zimo say?

He couldn’t exactly say that he actually knew he had been dragging things out a bit too long.

So he had actually already been trying to assassinate Ao Ruize.

It was just that the time before the time before last, he had originally already slipped the poison into Ao Ruize’s wine cup, but it turned out that day Ao Ruize was wearing a specially light and thin azure robe he had never seen before, the kind where you could see the outline of his large pectoral muscles clearly…

His hand trembled, and didn’t he just spill that cup of poisoned wine?

And the time before last, he had originally already pulled the dagger out from under the pillow, but it turned out Ao Ruize increased his strength right at that moment, instantly ramming him until he was completely routed and defeated. How could he still have the mind to assassinate him?

And the last time, he had already planned it all out: he would directly knock Ao Ruize out with a drug and push him into the river, faking the illusion that he had accidentally slipped and fallen into the water.

But it turned out Ao Ruize suddenly turned around and said the fish he roasted tasted very good, asking him if he wanted a bite… He figured he hadn’t eaten roasted fish in a long time indeed, and moreover, the grass beneath their feet was growing unusually thick and looked like it would be very nice to lie on. And then didn’t he just lose control again?

Dr. Li merely said: “Zimo, the Emperor has given us a death order this time. He said that if we can’t resolve Wu Ruize within a month, we are all to commit suicide.”

Jiang Zimo’s brows instantly furrowed.