Yuan Jing didn't expect that the tunnel of Prince Cheng's Mansion actually led all the way to the outside of the city. In addition, there were two exits in the civilian area of the city.
The exit outside the city was in a deep mountain. Yuan Jing searched around and found a lot of weapons and armor hidden in a cave in the deep mountain. Yuan Jing directly pried open the door, tidied up his space, put all the weapons and armor into the space, and waited for someone to deliver them to Ming Yu during the day.
Yuan Jing went back to the tunnel and returned to Prince Cheng's Mansion through the tunnel. He was so skilled and bold that he took down other people's weapons warehouse and returned to other people's lair in a swagger.
This time he sneaked into Prince Cheng's study, fumbled around slowly, and found a mechanism. He searched out several letters and a stack of silver bills inside the mechanism. Then Yuan Jing set a fire in the study. When the fire started to attract the people in the mansion, Yuan Jing escaped without anyone catching him.
Prince Cheng and Prince Cheng's son, who were awakened from their dreams, were shocked and hurriedly asked people to put out the fire. However, since Yuan Jing had done the fire intentionally, it was not so easy to put out. After the fire was out, the entire study became a pile of charcoal.
A fire broke out in Prince Cheng's mansion in the middle of the night, alarming all the residents in the area. The flames lit up the sky, and by dawn, the news of the fire had spread quickly throughout the capital.
Looking at the study room that had been reduced to ashes, King Cheng's legs went weak, because he knew that there were many things in the study room that could not be seen in the light. If everything was burned down, that would be fine. But what if the fire was deliberately started by someone, and the things were taken away before it burned?
"Is it man-made?" King Cheng grabbed his men and asked sternly.
"Your Highness, it seems to be man-made. We smelled oil when we were putting out the fire."
"Damn it! Search, search quickly. Where are the night patrols? How could they not notice someone sneaking into the palace?" Prince Cheng was furious. Prince Cheng's son Xiao Mingrui was also terrified. This time they targeted his father's study, so would they target him next time? What did this mean? Was it a warning?
For some reason, Xiao Mingrui subconsciously thought of Xiao Mingyu who was at the border. Only that madman would do such a crazy thing: "Father, the palace needs to increase its defenses, and the people in the palace also need to be reorganized. Maybe someone in the palace teamed up with people outside to do this."
He judges others by his own standards and has placed many obstacles in other people's homes, so he thinks others will do the same as him.
At night, Zhao Han and Meng Susu were also alarmed. Zhao Han was afraid that his son would be frightened, so he did not go out to check. Meng Susu ran to the yard and looked in the direction of the fire. The sound of shouting "fire" was particularly loud there, but fortunately the fire was put out in the end and everyone was relieved.
She wanted to find the prince to ask what was going on, but Xiao Mingrui suspected that there was a loophole in the mansion, so he was busy all night and had no time to meet the woman in the backyard.
Meng Susu was a little angry and felt that these men were really pigs. They treated you as their treasure when they wanted to go to bed with them, but threw you aside after getting out of bed. For some reason, Xiao Mingrui had been asking her to hand over the production methods of those facial mask whitening pills, saying that he didn't want her to worry about it, but this made Meng Susu feel alert.
If they were just ordinary facial masks and whitening pills, she would definitely not think too much about it, and might even hand them over in order to make Xiao Mingrui value her more. However, she knew very well that the reason these things were so effective was because they grew in a space nourished by spiritual energy. Although she made an excuse, she could feel that Xiao Mingrui was vaguely unhappy and had not come to her yard for several days.
Thinking of this, Meng Susu was not interested in knowing the cause of the fire. Let it burn. She would be fine even if the whole palace was burned down. If the time really came, she would just hide in the space.
The next day when he went to court, Prince Duan made fun of Prince Cheng and his son in front of many people. Prince Cheng, who had been busy all night, was not in a good mood. He even looked even darker because he suspected that it might be related to Prince Duan and his son.
"Don't let me catch you. If you dare, do it again."
"Hey, what do you mean? Are you saying that I sent people to burn it? Ugh! If I were to burn it, I would definitely burn your entire mansion to ashes. I have always been a man of integrity and responsibility, and I will never be like you, King Cheng, who is full of hypocrisy and dares to tamper with the food and grass. Where do you, King Cheng, put the tens of thousands of soldiers at the border?"
Prince Duan was furious and started arguing with Prince Cheng in the court. Although someone took the blame for those things, everyone knew who did it. Prince Duan was the only one who shouted it out in court without any care, making Prince Cheng and his son so angry that their faces turned from black to blue.
Finally, Prince Cheng could no longer bear it, and his verbal skills were no match for Prince Duan, so the two of them started fighting in the court with punches and kicks. The most incredible thing was that Prince Cheng was not able to beat Prince Duan, and was beaten so badly that his nose and face were swollen. He was so embarrassed that he did not appear in the court for several days.
The old emperor acted as a peacemaker and no one pursued the issue because he, like the others who pretended to mediate, just had a good time and after leaving the court, he laughed and told the imperial concubine about it.
Yuan Jing, the source of the whole incident, hid his merit and fame, and quietly waited for the time when Prince Cheng's Mansion would discover that the armory had been stolen. He found an opportunity to release the weapons and sent people to escort them to the border. At the same time, he copied a copy of the letters searched from Prince Cheng's Mansion and sent it over, so that Xiao Mingyu would not miss the big fish when casting his net to catch fish.
Because these letters contain the names of people that Prince Cheng has hooked up with over the years, including those from Northern Qi and even those in the military. Otherwise, how could the people in Prince Cheng's Mansion have been interacting with Northern Qi for so many years without being noticed? Naturally, there are people at the border who are colluding with Prince Cheng's Mansion to provide them with convenient access.
The old emperor had been in a good mood recently and had not taken Xiao Mingyu seriously at first. He wanted to go to the border just so he could go, leaving his life or death to his luck. Unexpectedly, he won the battle. Although he still advocated peace, he felt that this negotiation with Northern Qi should save him a lot of money. Thinking of the money saved, in order to please the imperial concubine, he thought about whether he could build a garden for her.
The imperial concubine was also very happy to hear the emperor's idea. It was just right to build a summer garden. As for how Prince Cheng and Prince Duan fought, she didn't care. She had already decided to adopt one and raise him as her own. In this way, she could still enjoy the glory of the empress dowager. As for Xiao Mingrui, he was too old. And after he took the throne, would he really respect her as the empress dowager? The imperial concubine didn't believe the promise made by Prince Cheng's mansion now.
Therefore, when the Prince Duan's Mansion was competing with the Prince Cheng's Mansion, she sometimes did not say a few good words to help the Prince Duan's Mansion. If Xiao Mingrui and Meng Susu knew that their goodwill gestures did not play any role, I wonder how they would feel.
***
News from the border continued to arrive, but the capital city remained prosperous and peaceful. Apart from stakeholders and ordinary people, not many people paid attention to the news.
The wealthy and powerful could leave the capital to avoid disaster before the enemy troops marched south, but it was difficult for ordinary people to migrate, and they would become refugees after leaving the capital.
Suddenly one day, many officials in the court launched an impeachment against Prince Duan, listing several crimes against him. The old emperor, who had just come out of the gentle land, was also confused when he sat in the Golden Throne Hall. What happened to make these people impeach Prince Duan? Wasn't he staying well at the border?
The cabinet minister stepped out and said in a sad tone, "Your Majesty, Prince Duan has not only interfered with the negotiations between the two parties many times, causing them to stagnate and causing the Northern Qi royal court to angrily denounce our Great Zhou, but Prince Duan also led his troops out of the city without permission during the negotiations and is now missing. Prince Duan is so reckless and has destroyed the harmony between our Great Zhou and the Northern Qi royal court. What kind of situation does he want to put our Great Zhou in?"
The old emperor was shocked. "The whereabouts of Prince Duan is unknown? Has he not been found yet? Where is Prince Duan? Where is Prince Duan?"
"Humph, Prince Duan probably got the news early but couldn't give a response, so he just hid in the palace. Your Majesty, you should quickly order Prince Duan to return to the court. If he's around, I'm afraid it will provoke even greater anger from the Northern Qi court. Then they will come out in full force to ask our Great Zhou for an explanation. How should the Great Zhou deal with it then?"
"Your Majesty, with Prince Duan disrupting the negotiations between the two countries at the border, there is no hope for peace in our Great Zhou. Please make a quick decision and bring Prince Duan back to the capital to be punished!"
Once a cabinet minister started the conversation, everyone else came out to express their grief. It seemed that overnight, the Prince of Duan became the sinner of the entire Great Zhou. As for whether the Prince of Duan was alive or dead, no one cared. They just didn't want these generals to stand out again, and they had to suppress them harshly.
Even if there were faint voices defending Prince Duan, they were quickly and forcefully suppressed by the other side, and the quarrel in the court gave the old emperor a headache.
At this time, there was a cry outside the palace. Someone couldn't help but jump in the eyebrow when hearing it. As expected, what he thought came true. He saw Prince Duan running into the palace while crying loudly. He knelt down in front and cried with snot and tears:
"Your Majesty, those villains want to harm my Ming Yu. Please help Ming Yu. What did they just say? Did Ming Yu disobey their orders? It's obvious that those villains can't stand Ming Yu winning a few battles, and they want Your Majesty to be a coward like them and cede land and pay money to Northern Qi."
"Your Majesty, it was those villains who colluded with Northern Qi to sell out the interests of Your Majesty and my royal family. They just wanted to keep Your Majesty in the dark and let them manipulate you. Your Majesty, Mingyu led his troops out because he found out that someone was selling out the interests of my Great Zhou. I didn't expect that they would turn around and sell out Mingyu. Now Mingyu is surrounded by the Northern Qi army. I beg Your Majesty to send troops to rescue my child. Your Majesty, they just can't bear to see Your Majesty and my Xiao family prosper. Who knows how much benefit they have gained from the Northern Qi people, so they are so desperate to speak for the Northern Qi people."
The old emperor was horrified when he heard this, and he looked suspiciously at all the officials in the court. The officials' eyelids also twitched when they heard this, and they wanted to cover Prince Duan's mouth. The cabinet minister who was the first to come forward to criticize Prince Duan was so angry that he almost vomited blood:
"You are framing me and slandering me. This is complete nonsense. Prince Duan, even if you are the prince, I will make things clear with you today."
"Ah, bah!" Prince Duan got up from the ground swiftly. "How much money did your family receive from others in the past two months? You are the one who is making up lies and slandering my son. What's the matter? Just the day before yesterday, your beautiful concubine received another 50,000 taels of silver from others. And where did your beautiful concubine come from? Do you think others don't know? How dare you complain about my son? You keep talking about the words of the saints and complaining about this and that. Tell me, where did your family's millions of dollars come from? Did it fall from the sky?"
"Slander, all false accusations!" The cabinet minister actually vomited blood and fainted in front of the emperor.
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