Lord Jiang was unconvinced and asked, "But doesn't your Great Zhou have a saying: 'If you doubt someone, don't use them; if you use someone, don't doubt them'?"
Gu Xin said, "Yes, that's right. But we in the Great Zhou also have a saying: 'Use both kindness and severity.'"
Lord Jiang was speechless for a moment.
He had only recently learned some of the Da Zhou dialect, and his vocabulary was not as extensive as Gu Xin's.
However, he just felt that Gu Xin was wrong, and he just felt that the General's family was ungrateful.
Gu Xin continued, "As a ruler, it's acceptable to trust one's ministers appropriately, but not completely. And as a princess, the eldest princess actually wanted to collaborate with outsiders to murder her own sister, someone she couldn't even control. Doesn't she know her own limitations? According to the order of seniority and the degree of parental favor, the future king of Nanlin should have been the eldest princess. Why was she snatched away by the second princess? The eldest princess thought she was enduring humiliation, but little did she know that it would be far better for her to demonstrate herself openly and surpass the second princess than to conspire with outsiders. Knowing yourself and your enemy is the key to victory. She and the second princess are sisters and understand each other, yet she still couldn't surpass the second princess. What about the young general, whom she barely knows? Where did she get the confidence to think she could control him and his group? Is she blind or brainless? Can't she see that the general's mansion initially had its eye on the second princess? She thought she had devised a brilliant plan, but instead, they outsmarted her."
"The Second Princess could still see through it. Even a Second Princess of that age could see through it. But with the First Princess interfering, even if the Second Princess saw through it, with the First Princess covering for her, she would probably think she was overthinking it."
"Your eldest princess has squandered the opportunity. She's completely let the wolf into the house. So, who else but your royal family is most at fault?"
Lord Jiang was speechless after Gu Xin's words.
Isn't that right?
How could the eldest princess be like that?
Lord Jiang was having a hard time accepting it; it really was a huge blow to him.
In everyone's mind, the eldest princess has always been a gentle, unassuming, and loving sister.
Who knew that she could hide her true nature so well at that age, and endure so many years in the General's Mansion, even arranging for her maids to be by the Second Princess's side early on.
Lord Jiang couldn't understand it. In fact, from the beginning, the King, the Queen, and all the ministers supported the eldest princess. In every aspect, the eldest princess was no less capable than the second princess.
I don’t know when it started, but the second princess suddenly surpassed the eldest princess, and the eldest princess, being gentle, didn’t seem to mind at all.
Now it seems that it wasn't that they didn't care at all; rather, they simply couldn't outmaneuver them openly and planned to deal with them covertly in the long run.
Lord Jiang has served as an official in Nanlin for over twenty years and has heard stories from his ancestors about the previous and subsequent Kings of Nanlin. He has never heard of such a story of brothers and sisters killing each other.
Gu Xin continued to criticize Lord Jiang: "The Second Princess may be a little smarter than the First Princess, but she is still too confident. As a result, she didn't even know that the two people closest to her were not her own. This led to her doubting herself and giving up the investigation even after she had already seen the clues. If she had continued to investigate, I believe she would have been able to find out."
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