At first, when Huiye's group entering Beijing were arrested, the White Lotus Cult hadn't realized that something might be wrong;
Those grassroots officials whose faces were replaced got into trouble one after another and were investigated. The White Lotus Cult had some reaction and wondered if something bad was going to happen, but those officials were soon released, so they thought everything would be fine.
It was not until their most important spies and concubines were arrested that the White Lotus finally realized that they were being targeted and were about to be knocked on the door and have their water meter checked.
Realizing the seriousness of the problem, the White Lotus Sect did not hide, but took drastic action!
Suddenly, undercurrents surged in the capital's various prefectures. All the men in Daqing, seduced by a woman in white, urgently sold their homes and land to exchange for gold and silver. This caused a brief drop in the property market, and real estate speculators took advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune...
However, these also gave the investigating officials of the Ministry of Justice an opportunity. The more the White Lotus Sect moved, the more they liked it, and they quickly wiped out this evil cult in one fell swoop.
The arrest of hundreds of cult leaders, elders, and followers of all levels made the staff of the Ministry of Justice and its subordinate departments dizzy and they even had to work overtime for a long time.
After interrogation and investigation, it was discovered that this religion was not originally engaged in cult activities, but was instead a positive energy social mutual aid organization, which just went astray later.
The founders of this cult were the poor wives of several families whose husbands were seduced by their concubines, who were favored over their wives, leading to the breakdown of happy families and the depravity of their children.
At first, they set up a "Waste Wives Mutual Aid Group" to help each other and lick each other's wounds during the difficult days.
Later, they gradually accepted more women who were equally unhappy, and the acceptance criteria gradually expanded from married women to young women, girls, and abandoned babies, so the entire organization grew rapidly.
As the organization grew larger, the financial expenditure required naturally increased. The model of relying on the sisters' voluntary investment at the beginning became increasingly unaffordable because most of the people accepted later did not have the financial means.
So a "genius" follower proposed, why don't we make money from those scumbag and cheap men!
At that time, the core members of the White Lotus Sect had all been harmed by their husbands who were seduced by mistresses. As victims, they very much agreed with the idea of harming other poor women.
In their opinion, as long as the male owner can withstand the test, he will not be cheated out of his wealth; if the male owner cannot pass the test and is blinded by lust, then the money is just a punishment for his philandering.
Regardless, they are not wrong.
At the beginning, the people they chose were indeed scumbags with bad reputations who were rampant in the village and had affairs with other women.
However, after tasting the sweetness time and time again and accumulating more and more money in the sect, the mentality of the management changed, and the entire White Lotus Sect began to become a tool for them to make money.
They no longer accept poor and pitiful women. Instead, they specifically look for qualified girls and trick them into joining the church through all kinds of magical deception.
Then, through various brainwashing methods, they are trained to become professional mistresses, and then they are made to seduce men and defraud them of their money.
The easy acquisition of huge economic resources made them more and more ambitious, and they began to traffic in human beings and intelligence!
Moreover, they have always been secretive, stealing girls from remote villages and selling them to brothels in third- and fourth-tier cities, so they have never been caught.
If they had not been so bold this time, daring to reach out to the capital, and to place people in the homes of ministers, especially daring to kidnap royal children, they would not have been defeated in one fell swoop.
Those members of the White Lotus Sect who committed serious crimes were sentenced to death or exile, and the women who were abducted and trafficked by the White Lotus Sect were rescued and sent back to their hometowns as much as possible.
The gossip daily followed up on the story for a month and unearthed many touching family reunion stories.
As for those women who were truly miserable and helpless and who only did hard labor such as sweeping and cleaning in the White Lotus Sect, the imperial court did its best to help them find places to settle down, so that at least they had a place to settle down.
The White Lotus affair had finally come to an end, although both Fengming and the officials from the Ministry of Justice felt that there was a conspiracy behind this matter. After all, an organization that had been so cautious before suddenly sent people to the capital. It couldn't be that the leader had suddenly become impulsive and wanted to become emperor.
However, since the interrogation made no further progress and no clues of any other conspiracy were found, the case had to be shelved temporarily.
As the fuse involved in the entire Bailian case, Bai Wanshuang should have been sentenced to death, but because of his meritorious service, he was only sentenced to exile.
Just as she was about to be sent to a bitterly cold exile, the staff who had gone to Hao Zhangming's hometown to investigate his "past love affairs" returned. Hao Zhangming himself had recovered after being treated at the Imperial Hospital.
The conclusion obtained from both parties is that Hao Zhangming did not abandon his lover at all!
Investigators visited Hao Zhangming's childhood friends, relatives, and neighbors in his hometown. They all said that Hao Zhangming had been devoted to studying since childhood and had never had any close behavior with any girls.
Hao Zhangming has been dull and introverted since childhood. He has few friends, let alone a childhood sweetheart.
When he grew up, Hao Zhangming joined the army. After making great achievements, he did not forget to recruit relatives from his hometown, help the village build roads and houses, and invest money to recruit the elderly and widowed. He is a very kind person.
Therefore, the story that Bai Wanshuang told about her mother and Hao Zhangming had loopholes from the very beginning. There was no such person in Hao Zhangming's life at all.
Finally, there was no other way. Based on the name of Bai Wanshuang's mother, Xinyue, the investigators expanded the scope of the investigation and finally found a woman with the same name in the village next to Hao Zhangming's hometown.
Her age is consistent with the age estimated by Bai Wanshuang's mother. She married a rich farmer in the county more than ten years ago and was said to have a daughter. That Xinyue died a few years ago. The rich farmer suddenly sold his family's land and houses a few months ago and took his daughter to the capital.
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