It wasn't that Duke Chen's acting skills were particularly superb, nor that he forced himself to vomit blood by using his internal energy in order to make the performance more realistic.
He was genuinely angry.
In the past two or three months, he has endured all the hardships of his life. This suffering and humiliation have left him utterly disgraced and humiliated.
What made him even more miserable was that many soldiers who had followed him to fight in the Northwest returned to the capital and requested to be discharged from the army for all sorts of bizarre reasons. Some of them had all sorts of connections in the capital, making it impossible for him to refuse.
But once this kind of thing is set once, there will be a second one.
After the second case was opened, a third case followed...
With such widespread rumors and a bandwagon effect, many of those who hadn't gone to the border managed to get discharged and return home through connections.
The Chen family army, which originally had a large number of soldiers, lost less than half of its troops in just two days!
The rest were mostly unrelated soldiers who couldn't escape and whose hearts were with Liu Bei but not with Cao Cao.
These past two days, they've even been too lazy to train, either claiming illness or asking for leave;
The Chen family's army camp had become a disorganized mess that couldn't be held together.
That's not all.
The Chen family mansion was emptied by bandits, the Crown Prince's savings were stolen, and the Empress's palace was running out of funds. The Chen family suffered heavy losses this time!
He was probably the first head of the Chen family in history to open a secret treasury for relief, which was a complete failure!
Spitting blood in court is considered mild; it's more like wanting to die on the spot!
After all, they had served as ministers in the same court for half their lives. Seeing that the Duke of Chen was so old and had even vomited blood in court, everyone felt a little sorry for him and stopped laughing.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Shang Xiche shared the same thoughts, and his impatience subsided somewhat as he asked, "The Marquis of Anping has been granted a title and is no longer a commoner without rank. You and your son keep saying that the Marquis of Anping led men to rob your grain and military supplies. Do you have any evidence? If you have no evidence, slandering a marquis or important official of the current dynasty is a serious crime!"
“Of course!” Chen Shiyu glanced at Ji Chenhai and Ji Fengming with a look that said, “You didn’t expect that, did you?” and then turned to the outside of the hall and said, “Bring them up.”
The words were spoken.
Two guards escorted a disheveled man, whose face was so obscured that he could not be seen clearly, into the palace and kicked him to his knees before the emperor.
Chen Shiyu said bitterly, "The Marquis of Anping thought he had done everything perfectly, but this man was a heavy drinker. Once, after getting drunk while dividing the spoils, he told the truth, which was overheard by my subordinates. That's how we secretly arrested him as a witness."
Ji Fengming: "???"
Ji Chenhai: "..."
This is clearly a blatant slander!
When he went to rob the Chen family's military pay, he brought along top-ranking assassins from the East Dragon Gate. When did this nobody suddenly appear?
Ji Fengming's mind worked incredibly fast. He crossed his arms and said in a cocky and nonchalant manner, "You call me a witness? Fine, I'll say your Chen State Duke's Mansion is shameless for stealing my underwear in the middle of the night! I'll go find a beggar who often stakes out your Chen State Duke's Mansion, give him a few hundred taels of silver as a witness, and I guarantee he can tell you about your family's situation pretty accurately."
Chen Shiyu still wore a "you didn't expect this, did you?" expression, with a hint of smugness: "But this person is not some nobody from near your Marquis Anping's residence. This person is a centurion under the Ninth Prince! In the border city, this person was highly valued by Wei Shu, and even once joined Wei Shu and the Marquis Anping in disguising themselves as enemy troops from Xiliang to ambush and kill my Chen family's soldiers!"
After saying that, Chen Shiyu ordered the two guards to grab the man's disheveled hair, force him to lift his dirty face, and threw a handkerchief over so that the guards could wipe the man's face clean.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
