Chapter 428 Heading North to Seize Military Power and Establish a Regional Domination
Prime Minister Qin purged all the officials in the court who were dissatisfied with him, and only then did he turn to the Prince of Zhenbei's mansion.
The accusations leveled against Xiao Xuance, who had accompanied Eunuch Wang to Youzhou to deliver the imperial edict, included that he defied the edict outside the city and that he murdered Eunuch Wang on his way back to Lin'an.
The attendant sued Xiao Xuance to plead for justice for Eunuch Wang, and had someone write a confession and sign it.
Qin officials presented their confessions to Zhao Xuan.
Zhao Xuan was furious and immediately ordered everyone in the Zhenbei Prince's Mansion to be imprisoned.
When the Imperial Guards arrived at the Prince's Mansion, it was already deserted.
Yun Zhaoxue had already arranged for Yang and her two sisters-in-law to leave Lin'an with the three children.
Xiao Mingshu, Xiao Xuanwu, the Lu family, the Pei family, and others also left one after another.
Yun Zhaoxue told them to only bring some easily portable gold and silver valuables, and not to bring anything else, because they would be coming back.
Qin Xiang and Zhao Xuan had no idea that they were prepared and had already arranged for their people to leave.
Old Liao was supposed to be among the last to leave, but he didn't. He left a letter and then went to assassinate Prime Minister Qin.
Yun Zhaoxue left the palace through a secret passage and then managed to leave the city, only to learn that Lao Liao had gone alone to assassinate Prime Minister Qin.
Old Liao left them a letter, which read: He was a former border soldier, whose family had guarded the frontier for generations. There was once a general in the army named Han who led them to several victories, including the recapture of two cities, forcing the enemy to cower inside and dare not engage in battle.
The imperial court sent a civil official to serve as the military supervisor.
That military supervisor was none other than the Prime Minister of Qin back then.
On his way to the border, Prime Minister Qin was captured by enemy spies. In order to save his life, he offered to become an inside agent for the Great Jing, revealing the Great Zhou's marching route and battle plan to the Great Jing, which led to the annihilation of the Great Zhou's 30,000 soldiers.
Old Liao was seriously injured and buried under corpses. He crawled out of the pile of corpses and was lucky enough to survive, but his relatives and brothers all died.
He lived like a walking corpse, constantly drinking heavily to numb himself.
Before this, he didn't know who the mastermind was until two years ago when he followed Xiao Xuanwu to escort grain to the border and captured the surrendered general Du Chong. In order to save his life, Du Chong confessed everything.
Du was the bodyguard who escorted the Prime Minister of Qin.
The two colluded and conspired together.
Qin Xiang was the mastermind, and Du Chong was an accomplice.
He wanted to avenge his family and his dead brothers.
Liao had been holding back his actions for fear of implicating the Xiao family. Now that the Xiao family had escaped the city, he had no more scruples and decided to secretly assassinate Prime Minister Qin.
Yun Zhaoxue let the others go first, while she and Xiao Xuance stayed behind to provide backup.
She and Xiao Xuance rushed into the city to look for him that very night, but they were too late; Old Liao was dead.
Prime Minister Qin recruited the martial arts masters left behind by Zhao Rui to work for him.
Old Liao was alone, and he couldn't fight against so many opponents head-on. So he chose to lie in wait under the bed in Qin Xiang's bedroom, waiting for Qin Xiang to come back and lie down before making his move.
But the person who returned and lay on the bed was not Prime Minister Qin, but his double.
Old Liao alerted the guards and was killed.
The corpses were hung outside the city walls to be exposed to the sun.
Yun Zhaoxue and Xiao Xuance stole the body back in the middle of the night, erected a tombstone, and buried it.
Xiao Xuance opened a jar of wine and filled all the dozen or so wine bowls placed in front of the grave. "Master Liao, I know you like to drink, so I brought you a jar of all kinds of wine. Please drink slowly, and I will bring you more wine next time I come."
Yun Zhaoxue and her two sons burned paper money for him, saying, "Master Liao, please wait a little longer. The Qin traitor is hiding too well, and we can't find him for a while. But those who do many evil deeds will surely perish. One day we will bring his head to your grave to comfort your spirit in heaven."
There is another concern about not killing Prime Minister Qin for the time being.
Yun Zhaoxue wanted him to write a confession himself, to record his crimes in history books, to make him infamous for eternity, and to return him to the place he rightfully belonged.
If he dies, those crimes will be sealed away and buried with his death.
After burning the paper money in their hands, Da Bao and Er Bao knelt down on one knee and kowtowed three times.
"Grandpa Liao, we'll come to see you again when we return to Lin'an next time."
"Grandpa Liao, may you rest in peace. We will definitely avenge you and let you rest in peace."
After finishing Liao Ye's funeral, they were about to set off for Dingzhou.
Zhen Ding Prefecture.
The imperial court was unable to pay the soldiers' salaries, so a new batch of people were replaced from the marshal to the deputy general, and the management of the soldiers was extremely strict.
They would often beat people with military sticks.
They weren't paid, and they had to put up with all sorts of mistreatment.
They quit; they wanted to go home and farm, and they agreed to escape from the army together.
They couldn't go back empty-handed; even if they didn't get their pay, they had to bring something useful with them.
So everyone carried some sweet potato vines, potato chunks, corn seeds, and cassava stalks with them.
Gu Huai and Zhu Feng and others earnestly persuaded them to stay.
The soldiers said they only recognized Marshal Xiao and no one else. If Marshal Xiao did not return to command the army, they would rather take off their uniforms and go back to farming.
A grown man should not live a life that is too stifling.
There were also people from the imperial court in the camp, so Gu Huai and Zhu Feng dared not tell them that Xiao Xuance would definitely return, let alone tell them to stay in the camp and wait for the marshal to return.
They could only watch them leave, hoping that Xiao Xuance would arrive soon to stop the soldiers, otherwise it would be difficult to recall them once they were far away.
Yun Zhaoxue used her Mercedes-Benz G-Class in her spatial dimension to carry the father and his two sons all the way north.
They arrived at Zhen Ding Prefecture earlier than those who set off half a month earlier.
They switched to horse-drawn carriages when they reached the vicinity of Zhen Ding Prefecture.
Xiao Xuance contacted Gu Huai and Zhu Feng and learned the whereabouts of the soldiers.
He rode off to catch up with the departing soldiers.
They had been walking for less than three hours when Xiao Xuance caught up with them.
Xiao Xuance persuaded the soldiers to stay, and as soon as they saw him, they were willing to stay without him having to say anything more.
Even without pay, they would stay and fight alongside him to avenge the fallen soldiers of the Great Zhou.
However, Yun Zhaoxue promised them: "Soldiers, I promise that if you return to the camp, I will pay you your military pay, as well as the pay owed by the army."
The soldiers were skeptical, but all their pay was settled.
Each person would receive at least several dozen taels of silver. There were also rewards for the heads of countless enemy soldiers killed on the battlefield, as well as pensions for fallen soldiers. All of these amounted to a large sum of money.
They waved their hands and said, "We'll be content if we can take these high-yield grain seeds back to feed our families. We'll accept not having military pay if our families are well-fed; we can't let you spend money on us."
The soldiers all said they didn't want the military pay he personally distributed.
They worked so hard to earn military pay, wasn't it all so that their families could have enough to eat?
As long as they can eat their fill, they don't ask for much.
When someone remembered that they were deserters, they dared not ask for their pay anymore. They quickly knelt down on one knee, clasped their hands, and begged for forgiveness: "I have something to report to the Marshal. Because we haven't received our pay for several months this year, and we thought we couldn't go back empty-handed and let our parents, wives, and children go hungry, so we stole some sweet potato vines and corn seeds from the barracks. We have violated military discipline, and we ask the Marshal to punish us."
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