Chapter 877: Beating in Court, Killing the Chicken to Frighten the Monkey
He Cheng stood back in the crowd with a cold face. The stares from the people around him made him extremely stiff. In the hall, King Hui and others were gagged and dragged away. Shi Qingrong stood beside Liang Guangyi. When the gaze from the top fell on him, he felt a sense of dejection, "It's finally here."
"Shi Qingrong, do you admit your guilt?"
"The criminal deserves death."
Shi Qingrong offered no excuses or quibbles. He dropped to his knees and said, "I, your humble servant, was foolish and instigated. I disregarded your majesty's regard and nearly endangered the life of your majesty and the country of Wei. I deserve death and accept the punishment."
Tang Ning glanced at Shi Qingrong, who seemed particularly knowledgeable and tactful. "You indeed deserve death for colluding with Xie Zhuo, but since you have come to the right path and have protected me in Xinde Palace, I can spare your life."
"While the death penalty may be waived, the punishment of life imprisonment cannot be avoided. I sentence you to fifty strokes of the cane in the court, demote you from your position in the imperial court, and confiscate the Shi family's property. If you dare to commit this offense again, you will be executed without mercy!"
Shi Qingrong suddenly looked up, his eyes full of disbelief.
He originally thought that he was going to die tonight. After all, he had seen the fate of Prince Hui's Mansion and several other families. He only hoped that the Queen would forgive the younger generation of the Shi family more because of his previous help in the show. He was ready to die.
But he didn't expect that the queen not only spared the Shi family, but also did not execute him directly.
Being demoted from his official position and having his property confiscated seemed extremely serious, and he might not even survive the fifty lashes. However, compared to those families who had their property confiscated and their clans exterminated, or were reduced to lowly slaves, the Shi family was fortunate.
The Queen didn't implicate anyone else in the Shi family, and even dismissed him from his official position, leaving the rest of the family's descendants unscathed. This meant that even if the Shi family lost all their wealth and was no longer considered an aristocratic family, their descendants could still remain in the court and become generals or officials...
This is a capital crime of treason!
Shi Qingrong's eyes turned red, and he said in a trembling voice, "Empress, you..."
He wanted to ask why, wanted to ask why she spared the Shi family, but after all the words fell into his lips, he couldn't say a word. He didn't know what the queen was worried about, nor did he know why she treated the aristocratic families so lightly, but it was a fact that she spared the Shi family.
After a while, Shi Qingrong kowtowed heavily to the ground and said sincerely, "The guilty minister Shi Qingrong accepts the punishment and thanks the Queen."
"Since you accept the punishment, then go ahead and beat me."
"Commander Yu, you will carry out the execution. The caning will begin right here."
As soon as Tang Ning finished speaking, Yu Yanfeng responded and quickly stepped forward.
The imperial guards quickly brought in a bench. Shi Qingrong vaguely guessed what Tang Ning was going to do. Without any resistance, he obediently let the imperial guards take him up, stripped off his court robes, and pressed him down on the bench wearing only his white undershirt.
No one in the hall expected that the queen would spare the Shi family, let alone that she would order the execution to be carried out directly in the hall. When the thick long stick fell on Shi Qingrong, everyone in the hall shuddered, and Shi Qingrong just gritted his teeth and endured it for three or five times before screaming.
Yu Yanfeng did not hold back at all. The sticks hit him and soon blood came out. The dull sound of each blow was accompanied by screams, and blood soon flowed from under the bench. The pungent smell of blood made the onlookers' faces turn pale.
After about twenty blows, Shi Qingrong's screams stopped abruptly.
However, the queen did not speak, and Yu Yanfeng did not stop, continuing to hit her with the stick for fifty times.
By the time the sticks stopped and Yu Yanfeng withdrew his hands, Shi Qingrong's entire back and lower body were no longer intact. His white undergarment was torn and mixed with the rolling blood and flesh. The glaring red color almost dyed Shi Qingrong's entire body red, except for his face, which looked like a dead person. He lay there limp with his eyes closed, as if he had stopped breathing.
Tang Ning raised her eyes and looked at the people below: "I am not a bloodthirsty person, but I will not allow anyone to dare to endanger the Great Wei. His Majesty is away at war. Only if you, the gentlemen, work together with me to protect the court in the capital can His Majesty and the soldiers at the border be free from worries."
"The crucial battle of Beiling is imminent. I hope that all the gentlemen can uphold their duties and do their respective parts well."
There was clearly no threat in their words, and even their voices were gentle and calm, as if the little girl's family was chatting with them. However, the smell of blood lingering in the hall, and Shi Qingrong slipping from a bench and falling to the ground, his life or death unknown, made no one dare to be disrespectful at all.
The faces of the court officials in the hall were all pale, and those who had been close to the court officials from the aristocratic families before, and who had even had some thoughts about the queen when she saw her weakness, were even more pale.
Everyone knelt down in unison.
"Your Highness, I will obey your command. May your Highness live a thousand years!"
…
The purge scared many people. When they came out of the Imperial Palace, all the court officials looked at the sky outside which was already getting brighter, and they still felt a little weak in the knees because of what happened last night.
Who could have expected that a palace coup would end like this, starting and ending in such a hurry.
If Prince Hui and his men had not been imprisoned, and the Queen had not issued an order to execute so many people in one breath, and even the blood of Shi Qingrong, who had just been carried out of the palace, had dripped in front of the palace and flowed along the ground in a horrifying manner, they would have even thought that this palace coup was just a dream.
Someone whispered, "King Hui suffered a tragic defeat. Who could have imagined that the Queen would have such a grand plan..."
Before he could finish his words, he was pushed.
"You're asking for your life, and you're still calling yourself King Hui? Xie Zhuo has already been expelled from the royal family."
The man next to him lowered his voice with a look of fear on his face. "Besides, if he didn't have this intention, how could he have fallen into the Queen's and her group's scheme? The Queen was only trying to force out the Beiling spies. From the beginning to the end, her goal was to purge the court so that she could cooperate with His Majesty and mislead Beiling. It was their ambition that got them into trouble."
"Since you dared to rebel, you deserved to be defeated and end up like this. In my opinion, the Queen is still kind."
Everyone in Prince Hui's palace was executed, but among the aristocratic families, except for the Min and Duan families, whose three clans were executed, the other families were spared. Even the Shi family was "pardoned" because of their unfounded merit of "saving the emperor", and only Shi Qingrong was punished. If this happened when the deposed emperor was in power, the entire family would be executed for any rebellion.
Although the queen was very cunning, she still showed mercy.
but……
The man seemed to recall something and whispered, "Who exactly is the spy Beiling left in the court?"
The others looked at each other in confusion, with many guesses. Most of what happened in the palace tonight was unknown to the public. They only knew that the Queen had set up a trap to capture Beiling spies. It was said that there was also a hidden chess piece hidden in the dark to stir up trouble in the capital, and some Beiling death squads hidden in the capital.
But the queen did not elaborate after returning to the palace. The court officials in front of the palace looked at each other and made guesses.
Could it be that it was Wang Huailu who had not been dealt with?
…
"Not Wang Huailu."
In the imperial study, Cao Dejiang and the others who had been specially left behind also asked about this matter. Tang Ning said, "Xiahou ordered Ming Ke, the spy sent by the Wei Dynasty, to be the young lady of the Cui family, Bai."
Cao Dejiang and his companions were shocked.
Liang Guangyi was also stunned.
It’s her?
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