Chapter 295 296. Making Groundless Senses
Lei Li, who was already arguing too much, finally started to speak out:
"Not only do I want you to be my imperial guard, I also want you and your daughter to take the civil and military imperial examinations. What can you do to me? Report me if you dare!"
After Lei Li made his statement, he really submitted a memorial to the emperor the next day to offer suggestions. The group of old ministers in the court were so angry that they vomited blood and quickly wrote a memorial to criticize Marquis Changning.
As a result, three factions were formed in the court. Those headed by Marquis Changning agreed to allow men and women to participate in politics; those headed by the old nobles firmly upheld the ancestral traditions; and the neutral party did not help either side and was a bit of a fence-sitter.
The Duke Su's Mansion had always remained neutral, playing deaf and dumb, not helping anyone, but could not stand the in-laws causing trouble.
After the marriage between the Duke of Suguo's Mansion and the Marquis of Changning's Mansion, they didn't have much contact with each other. When they met in public, the two families were very distant and it was hard to tell that they were in-laws.
But now, Lei Li and Zhou Yi visit the Duke Su's Mansion every now and then, under the pretext of building relationships with their in-laws. Miao Yurui and Lei Jingsheng have more interactions with the Seventh Princess, and little Yuzhu has become Lin Qingping's little tail, following him around all day and asking her brother to play with her.
Lin Qingping is the son of elder brother Lin Zhong, a seven-year-old boy.
Lin Qing, the commander of the Kyoto Guard, remained silent, while Lin Zhong openly expressed his support for Marquis Changning and even persuaded his good friend Xu Sanlang and several other families to join his side.
This made other officials think that Duke Suguo agreed with that faction.
Several noble families who had always had close dealings with the Duke Su's Mansion could no longer hold back and came to test the Duke Su and Princess Henghuan's attitude, asking them which side they were on so as not to hurt their own people by mistake.
Duke Su: “…”
Does anyone believe him when he says he doesn't take sides?
Princess Henghuan, the old fox, was cunning. She said that the Duke Su's Mansion only obeyed the emperor, never formed cliques for personal gain, and never favored any side.
"And I never form a clique for personal gain..."
Lei Li rolled his eyes and said, "Even if they've married into our alliance, it doesn't count as forming a clique. Even if they've formed a clique, they don't use it for personal gain. Who would believe that? I guess even the people in the Duke Su's Mansion wouldn't believe that."
"Lin Zhong is firmly on Zhou Zhou's side, and Zhou Zhou is on his father's side. Unless the Duke of Suguo kicks Lin Zhong out, what's the difference between that and standing on my side?"
"From an outsider's perspective, it is true."
Zhou Yi nodded in agreement. "And generally speaking, 'I'll speak a fair word,' means you're taking sides. Duke Su is either against us or on our side. It's impossible for him to remain neutral."
"The key point is that the Duke Su's Mansion only obeys the Emperor's orders, and His Majesty has always favored our Changning Marquis Mansion. Princess Henghuan's words are like a roundabout way of supporting us."
"Who told you that when the Queen was appointed, those old ministers and nobles had stronger opinions than ever, always bringing up the ancestors. The Emperor has long been displeased with them."
Lei Li laughed contemptuously, "The Emperor is eager to do anything that will displease them, and this time he'll probably side with us."
"Besides, if the heirs carefully trained by those powerful families lost to a boy or girl, their expressions would definitely be very interesting."
"Just like when the emperor bestowed upon me the title of Marquis of Changning, you didn't see it when I first attended the morning court. Their faces were so grim, as if their parents had died. If you didn't know better, you would have thought I was their father, returning to the spirit realm on the seventh day to visit these unfilial descendants."
Lei Li's mouth is still so harsh, and the censor's description of him as "frivolous and thin-speaking" is absolutely true.
Zhou Yi couldn't help laughing after hearing this, then shook his head and sighed, "It's just that the Changning Marquis's Mansion has been too prominent and has made enemies everywhere. I don't know if this is a good thing or..."
"I don't want to either."
Lei Li sighed in unison, but his words were full of sarcasm. "Who told these unworthy descendants to be so unmotivated that they couldn't even live up to their expectations? They're so stubborn that they have to come back every now and then to check on me and scold me before I wake up."
Zhou Yi was amused by his sarcasm again. "If anyone hears, I'll report you again."
"Just take part in it."
Lei Li rolled his eyes, unconcerned. "That ranking of people reported on the most times Senior Brother Pei made, I was the one who was reported on the most last year, and the year before that too. The top ten were all my subordinates."
"There's a censor who's become famous for impeaching me, and he's even attracted quite a few students to follow him. I'm starting to wonder if he has nothing else to do besides impeaching me."
"Those students are clueless. They just believe everything they hear. They haven't even met me in person, but they criticize me so remarkably and so logically, as if they know me intimately."
"Ever since I came to Kyoto and became the Marquis of Changning, the gossip in Kyoto has increased several times. Six out of ten topics of conversation after dinner are related to the Marquis of Changning's Mansion."
As he spoke, Lei Li feigned ferocity, gritting his teeth and saying, "Anyone who dares to criticize me to my face will be whipped dozens of times. Anyone who dares to write a letter to accuse me will be banished to another courtyard. Anyone who dares to slander me in the market and let me hear it will be executed, even if they are far away."
“……?”
Zhou Yi wanted to comfort him, but upon hearing these words, he suddenly smiled and said, "It's okay. They just don't understand you, so they make up stories out of nothing. People who know you know how good you are."
"Like you?"
Lei Li glared at him with his peach blossom eyes, and only when he nodded seriously did he feel happy. He snorted and said, "I don't care what they say. I'm just giving them a taste of their own medicine."
"I was the one who gave me a lot of the anecdotes and secrets in that Kyoto morning tabloid."
"The Xiling prefect who writes memorials to the emperor every year asking if he eats lychees, Minister Fang who loves to sing after drinking, and Censor Wen who disparages spicy food but sneaks around in a private room at a Sichuan restaurant."
"And that most aloof Dr. Yu, he secretly kept several mistresses and pretended no one knew about it. I had someone tip his wife off about this."
"Dr. Yu?"
Zhou Yi thought for a moment and asked, "The one who relied on the wife of a sea merchant to become an official?"
"That's him."
Lei Li snorted, "Let him always follow those censors in scolding me. A man who made his fortune by relying on his wife and yet dares to call her a tigress and keep a mistress outside, a Phoenix man, I will expose him to the ground."
"Not only did he curse me privately, he also cursed Duke Su and the six ministries. Probably, except for the emperor, there's no one in the court he hasn't cursed."
"How do you know these things?"
Zhou Yi was a little curious.
He knew that Lei Li and Lei Jingsheng had partnered to create a Kyoto morning tabloid. Actually, he had mentioned this casually, saying that with so many people in Kyoto loving gossip, why didn't they have a newspaper? A morning or evening edition would surely sell well.
Lei Li thought, which family in Kyoto doesn't have some problems? Why has the Changning Marquisate been criticized for so long? Either he or Zhou Zhou is being criticized. He wants to make sure that every family is criticized as well.
He and Lei Jingsheng teamed up to create a morning newspaper, and the name was given by Zhou Yi.
However, Zhou Yi was not very interested in gossip, so he did not read the morning paper. Lei Li or Lei Jingsheng would tell him about it when they found it interesting.
He didn't ask where the article in the newspaper came from. Due to his stereotype of gossip and scandals, he always felt that this thing... was largely based on hearsay.
Moreover, Lei Li was capable of making up harmless little stories to frame his colleagues. For example, the nicknames given to various officials in the tabloids were all given by Lei Li...
"My subordinates said so."
Lei Li was quite pleased with himself and said proudly, "When I first asked the Meng family to set up this escort agency, I didn't expect to hear so much gossip from all over the world."
"Isn't it boring on the ship when transporting convoys? The escorts and workers chat and gossip with the merchants, and sometimes they mention some local officials."
"As the saying goes, good news doesn't travel far, but bad news travels a thousand miles. Even if an official does a hundred good deeds, the people may not remember every one of them. But if he marries a hundred concubines, their heights and appearances might even be recorded in a notebook."
Zhou Yi laughed when he heard this, "So you just happened to hear the gossip about Dr. Yu?"
"Am I such a superficial person?"
Lei Li snorted, "Didn't you say that details determine success or failure? I'm in charge of the Transportation Department now, with all the gossip going on. What if it's hiding some official's secrets, leading to something major? And what great achievements could I make?"
"I instructed my officials to secretly write down everything they heard, especially those officials and nobles in Kyoto."
If you don't want others to know, don't do it yourself.
Some officials always think that they do things in a very secretive way, without anyone noticing, but unless you haven't done it, it's impossible that there won't be any clues at all.
For example, Dr. Yu had several mistresses, one of whom fell in love with a bodyguard from the Transport Department, and when she complained about him, she brought up Dr. Yu's private affairs.
The escort had a good relationship with a minor official in the Transport Department, and the minor official passed the matter to Lei Li.
In official mansions, there were so many maids and servants serving there that some of the masters' private affairs were seen and discovered by them, and unknowingly leaked to outsiders, spread to the market, and heard by people in the transport department, and finally the news reached Lei Li's ears.
It can be said that Lei Li is the person in the entire Kyoto who knows the most gossips besides the emperor... No, he should be the person who knows the most secrets and weaknesses of officials.
The few charges Lei Li mentioned when he filed the complaint were just the tip of the iceberg. If he really wanted to sue someone, he would have to write a thick book of memorials.
After all, no one is perfect, and a small matter can be magnified into many accusations. And isn't impeachment in the court all about talking? If you have a loud voice and a lot of fallacies, you can win the argument and get your accusation back.
——Of course, it’s a different story if you really commit a serious crime, and being eloquent won’t help.
When the emperor disliked an official and really wanted to punish him, he would secretly send a message to Lei Li to report him, and then he would lightly pick up the case and then put it down heavily.
When they don't want to punish someone, it's like when Lin Zhong beat up several noble children in one go for Lei Zhouzhou. It was clearly Lin Zhong's fault, but why did those noble families bring their own children to the Marquis of Changning's Mansion to apologize in the first place?
It was because the emperor favored the Marquis of Changning and the Duke of Suguo, and he took the beating incident seriously but let it go lightly, and just asked Lin Zhong to reflect on it for a few days.
"Don't those old guys in Kyoto love to wage propaganda wars and smear people?"
Lei Li sneered, "Then let's have a fight and see who can beat the other. The gossip about our Changning Marquis Mansion is just fabricated by them, but theirs is not."
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