After the emperor came out of the empress dowager's bedroom, he went to the Buddhist temple in the side hall to inquire about the situation.
When he learned that more than an hour had passed and none of Zhao Yiming and the secret guards who had gone down had returned, he became so anxious that his old headache came back.
I was worried about the safety of my children, the tunnel problem, the expedited letters from various continents, and how to deal with the aftermath. I almost fainted from anger.
He barely stood up by holding on to the table and rested for a while before coming to his senses. Then he asked someone to go outside the hall to inform Defu to call the prince over.
For some reason, his headache became more severe today, especially after staying in the Queen Mother's palace for a long time, he felt even more chest tightness.
The prince arrived quickly and was shocked when he saw the dark tunnel entrance in front of him. How did they do it right under the emperor's nose?
When he learned that there were tunnel entrances in other places, he was shocked and broke out in a cold sweat.
If they hadn't noticed this, when a real fight broke out, the enemy would have hacked them to death in their sleep, and they wouldn't even know how they died!
Seeing that the emperor was in a very bad condition, the prince could only order someone to send him back to the bedroom. After he carefully inspected the palace, he would go to the emperor for further discussion.
When the prince saw the emperor again, his mental state was much better.
However, the imperial study room was littered with memorials, and the emperor was furious and cursing. Seeing the prince coming, he became even more emotional, pointing at the memorials on the ground with trembling fingers and saying, "Look, look, even the ungrateful person has more humanity than him.
How could I have wronged him? Not only did I give him the best land as a fiefdom and stop him from paying tribute, but I also rewarded him with large sums of silver every year.
What happened? What happened? This is how he repaid me, so…” The emperor paused before saying the word “authentic”.
"That thing wasn't built in a day. What does this mean? It means he's been harboring second thoughts for a long time, wanting to replace me.
It's not even winter yet! A petition for money has already been submitted. Chuzhou has a good climate, plenty of rain, and fertile fields. Even if it's not fabulously rich, it can't be plagued by disasters every year!
Before it was granted to him, it was a place known as a granary, but after he moved there, it became a barren land, and every year they found various ways to ask for aid money."
The prince glanced at the memorial lying on the ground and knew without even looking at it that it was a memorial from his eighth uncle, Prince Wenxuan, who had sent him from Chuzhou asking for silver.
At that moment, he walked up to the emperor, knelt on one knee and said, "Father, it's time to make up your mind. You can't tame a wolf. You treat him as a brother, but he treats you as a fool!
What he wants is not Chuzhou, but this country and your life!"
Given King Wenxuan's ruthless and unscrupulous nature, if he really takes over the throne, none of them will be able to escape.
"You..." The emperor looked at the prince suddenly. Although it was clearly a treasonous statement, he could not refute it.
He knew very well what the prince said. He knew everything that King Wenxuan had done over the years, but he had always refused to admit it. The little kid who used to follow him around and call him royal brother had eventually turned into such a cold-blooded and heartless person.
The prince did not urge the emperor, but just waited for him quietly.
It is said that the imperial family is the most ruthless, but his father, who was born into the royal family, has the compassionate heart of a monk.
Because of the little bit of nurturing from Empress Dowager Jiang when he was a child, and the thin brotherly love between him and Prince Wenxuan, he had been tolerant of them for so many years. He always said that he would punish them severely, but in the end he let them off lightly again and again, which led to their appetites becoming bigger and bigger, resulting in the irreversible situation today.
But now, if they continue to indulge themselves, there will be only one outcome waiting for them, and that is eternal damnation.
After a long time, the emperor finally raised his head, his eyes more determined than ever before. He opened his mouth and finally said what the prince wanted to hear the most: "Reduce the power of the vassal states!"
The prince breathed a sigh of relief, as he was afraid that his father would still be the same as before.
The father and son discussed for a long time in the imperial study.
Finally, secret decrees were quickly issued.
The first thing to be attacked was the secret passage. Since King Wenxuan had taken the trouble to have it dug out, they took it for themselves without hesitation.
Didn't he want to catch them off guard? Then they would use his trick to counterattack him using the secret passage he had dug, so that he would know what it felt like to shoot himself in the foot.
A large number of secret guards were sent to the secret passage. The emperor not only had to find out the situation in the secret passage and all the entrances and exits in the shortest time possible, but more importantly, he must not alert the enemy and must not let anyone know that they had discovered the secret passage.
Secondly, formally rescue the abducted children of noble families.
Although they had already obtained a grasp of all the ministers controlled by King Wenxuan using the list handed over by Tian Mingwu, and confirmed the number of people who were indeed in cahoots with him and loyal to him, they also dealt with many of them openly and covertly.
But some people are truly loyal, and such people cannot be let down.
Another thing is that the list was made more than ten years ago, and it is still unknown how many court ministers King Wenxuan controlled over all those years.
In order to completely purge the court, they must find the hideout where Prince Wenxuan is hiding and resolve this matter once and for all.
The prince guessed that this time the Queen Mother would probably send Tian An and Yaoyao to the place where they had hidden people in the past, so he simply took the opportunity to hand the matter over to Zhao Yiming.
He immediately dispatched the secret guards around him and asked them to take the secret order and leave the city immediately to assist Zhao Yiming in solving the case.
Although those people took Tian An and Yaoyao into the secret passage, they would definitely leave the city eventually. It would be faster to send the secret guards to the outside of the city to meet them.
In the end, the prince and the emperor agreed that there would definitely be a battle between them and Prince Wenxuan.
He had been planning for so many years and had made so many arrangements, including digging tunnels and controlling court officials. It was hard not to believe that he did not secretly raise an army.
The prince had secretly sent someone to investigate the situation in Chuzhou without the emperor's knowledge. As the emperor knew, the climate was good, the rainfall was sufficient, the fields were fertile, and there was basically a guarantee of a good harvest in two seasons a year.
However, even in such a good year, people still could not eat enough or wear warm clothes, and many people died of starvation and freezing.
The reason was that the miscellaneous taxes were too high. In addition to several taxes stipulated by the court, King Wenxuan also established no less than ten types of taxes under various names.
In Chuzhou, even merchants could barely fill their stomachs, not to mention ordinary people.
He collected so much silver from the imperial court every year, and received such high taxes and grain from his fiefdom. Where else could he use it except to support the army?
The prince personally left the palace with the emperor's secret order for Tian Mingwu to start secret military training immediately, and went to find Tian Mingwu without stopping.
It was a message of decree, and it also explained to him the whereabouts of Tian An and Zhao Yiming, so that he didn't have to wait for Tian An to return home in three days.
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