Emperor Mingxi's face was ashen. It turned out that Sima had volunteered to guard the south, which was a plan he had made long ago!
No wonder, no wonder the Sima family was able to succeed in the end. Their planning over the past two or three decades has been incredibly patient and skillful!
A golden glint flashed in Dong Qianli's eyes, and immediately all of the Sima family's money would flow into the national treasury, contributing to the construction of Dayan.
Even if His Majesty had forgiven those who had dabbled in the money and made small profits, he would have secretly fined them silver to cover their crimes. Now that he had encountered such a corrupt official as Sima, he would naturally have to protect His Majesty's money bag.
Bao Yuanjun, who was originally anxious and agitated, stood there calmly. With the information revealed by the Divine Artifact Master, as long as his son could hold out until His Majesty's men arrived, he would be safe.
"I thought he was really rich when he bought the glass tea set for tens of thousands of taels of silver, but it turns out that all that money wasn't his!"
He's constantly being called the richest man in Jiangnan, but the money isn't actually his. I wonder how he feels inside, and how big the shadow of that resentment is?
Emperor Mingxi steadied himself and said calmly, "Lord Ji, what do you think? If I remember correctly, Sima Jing has received excellent grades in the 'Four Virtues' assessment every year?"
Is the emperor still trying to protect the Sima family? Shen Wanchuan, a mere front man for the Sima family, has more money in his household than the emperor does.
The walls and floor tiles of his sleeping room were buried with gold and silver; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a house of gold and silver.
Emperor Mingxi: A house of gold and silver? Very well, these will soon be mine!
Sima Jing's wealth is probably no match for Dong Qianli and other court officials, especially since he has trusted him for so many years, so he has no face to compete.
However, if we try to get Shen Wanchuan's 'small change' into his private coffers, these people should agree.
"Before knowing whether the other party was a human or a ghost, he would have found it hard to believe that his most trusted cousin would betray him. He would only think that someone else had ulterior motives and was trying to sow discord between them."
[Master, do you know what Shen Wanchuan bought that expensive glass tea set for?]
"It's not for Sima Jing to drink tea with, is it?"
[Of course not. Sima Jing's public persona is that of an incorruptible and virtuous official; he even wore a nearly new official robe when he met Emperor Mingxi.]
Emperor Mingxi closed his eyes. Last year, Sima Jing came to the palace to see him and was indeed wearing an old official robe. When he asked about it, Sima Jing said that it was his newest official robe.
He was so touched and heartbroken that he gave him a huge pile of things before he left!
Emperor Mingxi gritted his teeth. At that moment, Sima Yi must have been laughing at his own stupidity!
He certainly wouldn't use a teapot worth tens of thousands of taels of silver to drink tea. Although he secretly enjoyed himself quite a bit, this teapot wasn't really meant for him.
"Who is he going to give it to?"
[This is a New Year's gift for the Emperor of Dongyi. Didn't expect that, did you?]
The Emperor and his ministers of the Great Yan Dynasty: We never expected this!
While Ji Hongming, the Minister of Personnel, who was also thinking to himself that he hadn't expected this, stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, Lord Sima has indeed been rated as excellent in the 'Four Virtues' assessment every year."
However, I believe that Lord Fengtang's impeachment does not conflict with Lord Sima's excellent performance evaluation!
Emperor Mingxi nodded and said, "Go on."
"Yes, Your Majesty, I believe that you may not be aware of the encroachment on farmland. The Sima family is large and powerful, so it is possible that the encroachment on farmland is indeed true."
Ji Hongming set the tone for the matter with a single sentence, declaring that the whole thing was done by someone surnamed Sima, and then gradually dragged out the old fox Sima Jing.
"But it's also possible that other relatives are acting in Lord Sima's name. Therefore, in my humble opinion, this matter needs to be investigated further!"
A thorough investigation is crucial. The truth will eventually come out. If things get serious, he believes that as long as the Sima family makes enough moves, there will inevitably be loopholes.
Isn't there still a living witness, Bao Qianjun?
Emperor Mingxi seemed to be weighing his options when Yue Fuguang's voice came from beside him, "He couldn't possibly be sending a gift on behalf of the emperor, could he? Is the Sima family colluding with the Eastern Yi?"
"Of course it wasn't sent on behalf of the emperor. There's been collusion for a long time. You know about pirates at sea, right? Why can't they be stopped? Because this is the Sima family's property!"
Turning piracy into an industry, isn't that amazing?
They robbed passing merchant ships, causing many coastal merchant ships to be afraid to land there, thus giving them a monopoly on business there.
Otherwise, why would Shen Wanchuan's development speed in just a few years be faster than his development speed in the previous ten years?
It wasn't until Sima Jing took office and had a protector that he started his rise to power!
"Although the fall of the Dayan Kingdom was mainly in the Western Qiang, Northern Li and Southern Yue, the Nanzhao and Eastern Yi also intervened quite a bit."
As the saying goes, "When a wall falls, everyone pushes it down; when a drum is broken, everyone beats it." The Eastern Barbarians came to interfere, so what did the Sima family do in all of this?
The emperor and his ministers of the Dayan Dynasty were also eager to know what Sima Jing had done.
After Emperor Mingxi died suddenly, a new emperor ascended the throne. The Dayan Dynasty was already like a sinking ship. Sima Jing had long foreseen that Dayan was doomed, and his Sima family's opportunity had arrived.
At this time, in addition to the pirates at sea, they also controlled some of the coastal garrisons. You see, the garrisons and the pirates were under the same master, so how could they possibly be wiped out!
Like his father, the new emperor lost many officials in the court, but he did indeed have great trust in Sima Jing.
After the new emperor ascended the throne, Sima Jing's power and position became even greater and more stable. Except for not changing his surname to Sima, he was no different from the emperor in Jiangnan.
Later, they secretly recruited private soldiers in Jiangnan. When the Western Qiang and other states attacked Dayan, the Sima family was already prepared to raise an army at any time.
When the various foreign armies were still two days away from the capital, he opened the port and let the Dongyi people in.
His own private army infiltrated the area, burning, killing, looting, and plundering local wealthy households to accumulate wealth. Later, he drove away the Dongyi people by portraying himself as a righteous and noble figure who resolutely expelled foreign enemies and protected the safety of the local people.
For this, they were loved by the local people. Later, when the Dayan Kingdom fell, the Sima family, at the repeated pleas of the local gentry and people, raised the banner of rebellion "in the name of their plight," and the Great Wei Dynasty was established.
"The local people have no idea that their land, money, and grain all end up in the Sima family's pockets. Isn't this person who keeps pleading for them a shill for the Sima family?"
The land was either bought or forcibly seized by wealthy merchants like Shen Wanchuan, the money and grain were robbed by pirates, and the people were killed by the Dongyi people.
What does this have to do with the Sima family who saved them? As for those who repeatedly pleaded, Shen Wanchuan was the leader...
The unspoken message is quite clear: it was a performance put on by the Sima family for the world to see. The rulers and ministers of Dayan also knew that this was a political show orchestrated by Sima Jing. If it were them, they would have done the same.
"This Sima is actually quite something! His character is much more solid than those modern pretty boys; it never falls apart!"
"Of course. He did this for the sake of this persona, for the stability of his Sima family's empire, and to prevent future troubles. The first emperor of the Great Wei was his son, not him. This shows how much he could endure for the sake of the empire."
Although we might not like that broken chair, it seems that ordinary people quite like it, both men and women, and they would like to sit on it whenever they have the chance.
Sima Jing, however, restrained himself. He always considered himself a subject of the Dayan dynasty, and therefore, out of loyalty to the emperor and love for his country, he refused to ascend the throne.
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