"Then you'll make her your foot-washing maid, and let her beat and bully you every day. Let's see if she dares to resist then?"
The image of Su Wanwan squatting in front of him and washing his feet involuntarily flashed into Liu Qi's mind.
With her head bowed, revealing a slender, long swan neck, she asked gently, "General, is the water temperature suitable?"
He only thought about it for a moment before quickly dismissing the idea.
The scene was so beautiful that it sparked the imagination.
She had always treated him with indifference and rationality; her watery eyes had never looked at him with affection.
In an instant, Liu Qi made his decision: "Since the Prince of Lu has extended such a generous invitation, how can we not go and trouble him?"
If he weren't of such low status, why would she despise him to such an extent?
To prove himself, he was determined to cause some more trouble!
Lu Yangzhu, the Prince of Lu, was granted a fief in Yanzhou.
As an old prince in his sixties, his resentment towards the imperial court had accumulated over the years.
Thirty years ago, Prince Lu was a young and vigorous playboy prince who drank at the same table with his princess and outsiders, and mingled with men and women.
While drunk, palace maid Hua Rong engaged in illicit relations with soldier Yuan Bin and the concubine's brother Zhang Shiju.
As a result, he was denounced by Princess Qixia, the sister of Prince Lu.
The Prince of Lu was reprimanded and had two-thirds of his stipend confiscated, while his wife, Lady Zhang, was stripped of her title.
Yuan Bin was beheaded and his head displayed to the public. Zhang Shiju and palace maid Hua Rong were both sentenced to death by hanging. The rest were sent to the border guards. The crimes of the chief clerk and below varied.
The Prince of Lu's mansion has truly lost face and cannot hold its head high among the princes and nobles.
After decades of accumulated resentment, the entire Shandong province is now being repeatedly ravaged by bandits, and the people are living in fear.
Rumors then circulated that the emperor in the capital had been imprisoned, and Prince Lu became increasingly uneasy.
If he could seize the opportunity to make a big profit, he wouldn't be living a life of poverty and destitution, and he wouldn't be even worse off than his brothers who were princes.
Of course, his own nephew, the heir apparent of King Zouping, was also among those who instigated King Lu to plot his scheme.
The first wife of Lu Yangdu, the old King of Zouping, died young and had no sons. Only his concubine, Zhou, gave birth to two sons born out of wedlock.
Later, the old King Zouping took Lady Ding as his wife, and they had a son named Dangliang. The old King Zouping loved Lady Ding and his son very much, and he granted them the titles of concubine and eldest son. It has been twenty years since then.
As a result, the eldest son of a concubine refused to accept this and fought with Dang Liang for the right to inherit the throne.
According to the old custom of the Great Liang Dynasty, if the principal wife of a member of the imperial clan had passed away and there were sons of different principalities, the emperor was only allowed to choose a wife to assist him, and was not granted the title of successor wife.
Therefore, Ding was a helper in the household and there was no distinction between the principal wife and concubines with Zhou. Dang Liang was just the third son of a concubine and could not be considered the eldest son of the principal wife.
The Ministry of Rites took this matter very seriously. The result of the consultation with the ministers of the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Ministry of Rites was that the eldest son of a concubine would inherit the title of King of Zouping, and Dang Liang would lose his right to inherit the throne.
How could Dang Liang, who had considered himself the heir apparent for over twenty years, tolerate such humiliation?
At this critical juncture, he instigated his uncle, the King of Lu, to take advantage of the situation under the guise of "serving the king" to make a big profit.
When the Prince of Lu ran out of money, the heir of the Prince of Zouping helped him out.
When the King of Lu said he was short of manpower, the Crown Prince of Zouping advised him to recruit those bandits who could defeat the government army, promising them high-ranking positions and generous salaries, and that he would not have to worry about not having anyone to fight for them.
When he heard that Liu Liu, Liu Qi, and others had received the letter and were heading to Yanzhou, the Prince of Lu was both excited and afraid.
He was excited that even though he was practically half-buried, he still had the same ambition and determination as Emperor Taizong of the Ming Dynasty.
The fear stemmed from the possibility that Liu Liu, Liu Qi, and others would break their promises and become uncontrollable, potentially bringing trouble upon themselves instead.
However, compared to Yang Hu's band of bandits who were utterly inhumane and carried out a massacre of the city, Liu Liu and Liu Qi's group were clearly more ethical.
However, to the surprise of the Prince of Lu, before Liu Liu and his men even arrived in Yanzhou, Lu Wan, the Vice Minister in charge of suppressing bandits, sent people to Yanzhou City and took full control of the city's defenses.
King Lu was dumbfounded.
Moreover, Lu Wan also transferred the canal transport troops from Linqing to Jining, ready to support Yanzhou at any time.
When Liu Qi and his several thousand cavalrymen arrived hundreds of miles outside Yanzhou City, they received news that all the city gates of Yanzhou were tightly closed, and the Prince of Lu was leading his clansmen to guard the gates, ready for battle.
The grain transport troops from Linqing were lying in ambush in Jining, preparing to cut off their retreat.
Liu Liu was so angry he kept cursing!
This is not a case of King Lu intentionally recruiting them; it is clearly a scheme to lure them here and then annihilate them!
Liu Liu, Liu Qi, Qi Yanming and others discussed it and felt that they couldn't give up halfway after coming all this way.
They still sent a small team to the outskirts of Yanzhou City to gather information and tell their story.
As expected.
The city gates of Yanzhou were heavily guarded, with archers on high alert. As soon as they got close to the gates, a rain of arrows would rain down on them.
Liu Liu and his men cursed the ancestors of the Prince of Lu for eighteen generations, and after being manipulated like this, they completely gave up on the idea of being recruited by other forces.
King Lu never expected that his plan would fail before it was even halfway through.
Lu Wan instead showered Prince Lu with praise and petitioned the court to commend him. He also used various forms of coercion and enticement to get Prince Lu to write a request for the court to send more troops to garrison Yanzhou City before he would stop.
The rebellion plot that the Prince of Lu had been planning for many years was thus aborted.
The Lu King's unsuccessful campaign greatly deterred the regional princes who harbored their own ambitions.
Who knows which of their acquaintances is a secret agent of the imperial court?
What you thought was a carefully planned scheme might have already been laid out on the emperor's desk like a blank sheet of paper.
Before Liu Liu and his main force could clash with the border army force arranged by Lu Wan, an earthquake struck.
An earthquake struck Shandong.
An earthquake struck Beijing.
On the same day, earthquakes struck Baoding and Hejian prefectures, as well as Jizhou, Liangxiang, Fangshan, Gu'an, Dong'an, Baodi, Yongqing, Wen'an, Dacheng and other counties, and Wanquan, Huailai, Longqing and other guard posts.
The sound was like thunder, and countless houses shook and collapsed.
The most dangerous place was Bazhou, which experienced nineteen consecutive earthquakes.
The residents were terrified.
Some believed this was divine punishment, since the vast majority of the bandits came from Bazhou.
Some people believe this is the will of Heaven.
A few months ago, Liu Liu and his gang approached the capital. In Bazhou, a man with dragon-shaped patterns on the soles of his feet was captured by the eunuch Zhang Yong and executed.
Isn't an earthquake a sign that the sleeping dragon has awakened, and it's time for a change of dynasty?
All sorts of rumors are flying around.
The entire Hebei Plain and even the whole country were filled with fear and unease.
While drastically reducing taxes, Su Wanwan also relentlessly suppressed Li Dongqian's faction, keeping her extremely busy.
The Ministry of Revenue reported that half of the prefectures and counties in Shandong had been ravaged by bandits, and taxes had been waived, but 780,000 shi of grain still needed to be transported to the border and the capital.
Su Wanwan ordered the Ministry of Revenue to conduct a detailed investigation into the 780,000 shi of tax grain, and to exempt as much as possible to avoid increasing the burden on the people of Shandong, breaking their promise to the people, and forcing them to rise up in rebellion.
As a result, the bandits were gradually depleted, but few ordinary people joined them, and their influence waned day by day.
In addition, the overall policy of suppressing the bandits was reiterated and published, and each prefecture, state and county copied it to ensure that the soldiers and civilians in all villages and fortresses knew about it, so that they could live in peace and have no suspicions about each other.
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