Chapter 1144 Out of Control Part 3
Bai Shan and Man Bao exchanged a glance and immediately kowtowed, saying, "Your Majesty, this man is the one who knows the inside story. Please show mercy and allow him to come in and seek justice."
Minister Feng said, "If you beat the drum for reporting, you must be beaten with eighty sticks. This is the rule."
Bai Shan thought, I asked for mercy because I knew it was the rule.
Bai Shan raised his head and looked at the emperor eagerly, saying, "Your Majesty, after eighty strokes of the cane, the man will be speechless even if he doesn't die. I beg Your Majesty to show mercy."
Wei Zhi and Lord Tang tried to plead for mercy, but there were also court officials who expressed opposition. Since the rules had been set, they were to be followed.
How can it change because of people?
Bai Shan and Man Bao knew that they were targeting the matter and not the person, but in their opinion, the rule itself was wrong. How could someone come to seek justice only to be beaten with eighty sticks first?
However, the people in the hall started arguing about this matter.
The King of Yizhou couldn't help but curl up the corner of his mouth when he saw this, and Manbao couldn't help but get anxious. They didn't mind wasting time at this moment, but the drums in front had stopped, and they must have started beating the boards.
Although she has never met them, they are allies after all, right?
Manbao looked at the pensive emperor and said, "Your Majesty, eighty strokes of the cane can really kill someone."
The emperor finally came back to his senses and frowned, saying, "Alright, let them reduce the number to half and carry it to the main hall after the fight."
He glanced at the King of Yizhou, who had his eyes downcast, and said, "I also want to see where the King of Yizhou keeps his private army."
The people in the hall quieted down, and the emperor asked them to return to their seats, leaving only the King of Yizhou and Bai Shan Zhouman kneeling in the hall.
He was wondering, who was beating the drum to report the news?
How did he know where the King of Yizhou kept his private army?
Old Lord Tang and Wei Zhi were also thinking that these two children and the Bai family must be hiding something from them. How come they didn’t know that someone would beat the drum to report the incident?
The people in the hall waited for a long time before the guards came over carrying a blood-covered man on a door panel.
They dragged the man off the door and beat him with forty sticks. The first twenty sticks were so severe that they broke his bones before the emperor's imperial edict arrived. It was not until the emperor's oral order arrived that the executioners probably guessed that he was the person the emperor wanted to see, and the sticks were much lighter.
But after forty blows, he was also seriously injured. He collapsed on the ground and tried to sit up with his arms, but he couldn't. Instead, it pulled the wound and he couldn't help coughing and spitting out several mouthfuls of blood.
Manbao turned his head and saw that he had internal injuries, but he didn't know how serious they were.
He looked up and met Manbao and Baishan's concerned gazes, and couldn't help but grin. Although they had never met formally, they had heard of each other and had a deep connection.
Bai Shan pulled Manbao and they moved a little to the side so that he could directly see the emperor sitting on it.
The emperor looked at the wounds on his back and buttocks and asked, "What is your name? Why are you beating the drum?"
Since he couldn't get up, he simply didn't get up, and just lay on the ground and said, "Your Majesty, I am Xiangchao, a native of Qingshi County, Suizhou."
Not only the emperor, but also the King of Yizhou couldn't help but twitch his eyebrows, and his hands in his sleeves couldn't help but clench slightly.
Xiang Chao tilted his head slightly to glance at the King of Yizhou and sneered, "Your Majesty, does this place name sound familiar to you?"
The King of Yizhou said expressionlessly, "The territory of the Great Jin is familiar to me, and Suizhou is not far from Yizhou."
"Yes, Suizhou is very close to Yizhou, but it's too close! Your Majesty, I accuse the King of Yizhou of killing innocent people, encroaching on his land, and raising his own soldiers!"
In anger, his entire body rose up, half of it propped up, and he looked directly at the emperor and said, "Dongxi Manor, he raised private soldiers in Dongxi Manor. In order to obtain this piece of land, he killed everyone in my Xiang family, young and old, as well as the tenants in the manor. I beg Your Majesty to make justice for all those who died in vain!"
The emperor opened his mouth in astonishment and stood up suddenly.
Xiang Chao had clearly been waiting for this day for a long time. He crawled forward two steps, stared at the emperor with tears streaming down his face, and said, "Two hundred and nine people in total. They all died because the Jianwei Weir burst. Their deaths were completely covered up. But, Your Majesty, they died unjustly, utterly unjustly!"
The emperor slowly sat down, stared at the King of Yizhou for a while, then looked at Xiang Chao, "Go on, I'm listening."
The King of Yizhou looked up at him, pursed his lips tightly, and finally lowered his head without saying a word.
Xiang Chao lay back on the ground. He was exhausted from the roar, but his voice still reached the ears of every minister and every family leader in the hall.
"About six years ago, someone came to the clan leader, wanting to buy our entire Dongxi Village. The clan leader refused. Our Xiang family's roots are here, and the ancestral hall is also here. How could we possibly leave?" Xiang Chao said. "That person came a few more times after that, but we couldn't reach an agreement. However, because he was well-spoken and generous, he became friends with many people in the clan."
Xiang Chao said, "Five years ago, there were continuous heavy rains. Our village has a river connected to the main river. The clan leader had people prepare for flood control early on, but no one expected the Jianwei Weir to burst. At that time, we were still asleep when the flood rumbled down from above. Many people were crushed by the collapsed earthen walls or swept away by the water before they could react..."
Xiang Chao said with tears in his eyes, "I couldn't react at all. My great-uncle was standing on the high ground one moment, shouting at everyone to run to higher ground, and the next moment he was swept away by a wave. It wasn't until morning that only about 200 people from the entire village escaped. The flood receded a little, but we were unwilling to give up, so we ran back to try to dig it up and see if we could save more people..."
"As soon as we got back to the village entrance, some soldiers on tall horses rushed out from nowhere and started hacking and killing people..."
Xiang Chao turned his head and stared at the King of Yizhou, his eyes red as he said, "Those weren't bandits. They were wearing armor, saddled horses, and the weapons they used were all the best, but they weren't very decisive. Several of my brothers and I fell behind and ran away... But we don't understand who it is, who wants to kill my Xiang family? Although our family has its share of scoundrels and prodigals, we've never had such a gruesome enemy that could wipe out our entire clan. After we escaped, we quietly came back to check, but we saw that Dongxi Village had already built new houses, filled with people and horses..."
Xiang Chao turned his gaze away from the King of Yizhou and looked back at the emperor. "We went to see the magistrate of Qingshi County. He served us tea and said he was going to Dongxi Manor to fetch someone for questioning. But he turned around and went to the back hall. We felt something was wrong, so we quietly fled."
"After that, we became much more cautious. When we went to see the governor of Suizhou again, we were also on guard. Sure enough, the governor of Suizhou also wanted to arrest us," Xiang Chao said. "My cousin said that this man not only had the orders of a county official, but also the protection of a provincial governor. He must be someone extraordinary. So we didn't dare to go to the officials anymore and started investigating on our own. In the end, we found out that the two people who often came and went from the manor were living in the Yizhou Palace."
The next update will be around 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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