Chapter 87 – Half an hour

Chen Pingping said after a moment of silence, “His Majesty is a suspicious person, and this method Fan Xian used cannot be said to be unintelligent, but the problem is that His Majesty is suspicious, so for these suspicions that are too easy to see, he will instead have deeper suspicions ……”

Fei Jie glanced at him and said, “That’s why we’re going to kill for Fan Xian and tie up these suspicions.”

“Yes ……” Chen Pingping smiled and said, “His Majesty is suspicious, so instead it’s hard to make a decision, so many years have passed, and he’s not the same fierce general who dared to charge the Northern Wei’s iron cavalry with five hundred men back then …… killing people to determine the heart of the king, although it is very rough, but the good thing is that, the dead will not speak, but the dead will tell your majesty, what your majesty wants to know.”

Fei Jie coughed twice and said, “Although it is a bit troublesome to talk, basically I understand.”

Chen Pingping laughed, “His Majesty is suspicious and confident, so once he suspects something, he will only look for the part that can prove his suspicions from the evidence he finds in front of him …… So after all is said and done, it is just His Majesty deceiving his own eyes. Of course, in one way, it’s not considered deception, because it’s something that actually happened.”

As he was speaking, faint sounds of talking came from outside the Chen Garden. Chen Pingping and Fei Jie looked at each other, and Chen Pingping said, “It seems that the decree from the palace has arrived, so you should prepare to leave the capital.”

Fei Jie nodded, then asked, “Where is Hong Zhu?”

“Don’t move for now.” Chen Pingping frowned and thought for a while, pushed her wheelchair towards the front of the garden and said, “I always feel that this little eunuch is not simple.”

Fan Xian, who was far away in Jiangnan and thought he was watching everything in Kyoto with a cold eye, did not know that the deepest nail he had buried in the palace had become the object that the two most powerful big shots in Qing wanted to kill within the same time, which only proved that he was not a god, and accurately speaking, this plan that had consumed the most of his energy and was hidden in the deepest of his heart still had many dangers that were all outside of the calculations, and if not for the fact that Hong Zhu possessed a good enough luck, when When Fan Xian returned to the capital next time, he was afraid that he would no longer be able to find any news of that pimple-faced little eunuch in this world.

I don’t know if there will be a god in the temple, but there is certainly no one in this world who is a god, even if it is the Beiqi state master who is the closest to a god in terms of realm, Bitter Lotus, and even if it is the Emperor of Qing …… who is already powerful and mindful enough to make the gods jealous, all of them are in fact still just mortals.

So that Emperor of the Qing Kingdom, who has always appeared to be somewhat unfathomable, was sitting under the long corridor of the Taiji Hall at this time, and when he looked at a large area of the palace lawn in front of him, his gaze appeared to be a bit forlorn and disappointing, just like an ordinary middle-aged man.

Beside the emperor, was the black wheelchair, Chen Pingping half lowered her head, gently caressing the woolen blanket on her lap, silent.

The two of them, the ruler and the minister, were silent, calmly looking at the palace ping in front of them. At this time is still the beginning of spring, no fallen leaves, no fallen flowers, the palace was cleaned by the eunuchs and palace maids and handymen, spotless, the cracks between the stone slabs of those soil are flat and undulating, painted into a line of modesty.

At this time the night is already extremely deep, but the lamps in the Taiji Hall still shine the palace ping clearly.

“I was wrong.” The emperor did not use me to address himself today, he sighed and said, “I always thought that with three northern expeditions and a western expedition to the south, there was nothing in this world that could overwhelm me anymore, so I could calmly watch it all unfold, but when it actually happened, I realized that it turned out that I still overestimated my own ability to withstand it. ”

Chen Pingping glanced at him and said softly, “This is a family matter …… The ancients have said that it is difficult for a clean official to resolve a family matter, and Your Majesty is no exception.”

At this moment, Chen Pingping already knew what exactly had happened in the palace, but this old raggedy man didn’t deliberately show how shocked and horrified he was, his attitude was very calm, like this matter wasn’t a big deal. This attitude made the emperor’s mood a little better, yes, it was just a family matter that could not be seen in the light of day.

The emperor changed his self-proclaimed name back and said with a smile, “In the past, you have always said that you don’t want to get involved in my family affairs, but then you finally came in, how about it, do you want to take care of this matter for me?”

Chen Pingping lowered her head even lower and said, “Your majesty had a wonderful decision long ago, the slave only needs to act according to the plan.”

The emperor was silent for a long time, slowly said, “A few months ago, I am here with you said, I am ready to accompany them to have a good time …… However, she is after all my most beloved sister, those little cubs are after all my son, so there has been a three-pointed intolerance, however, to the present day, even if it is not tolerated, it must also be moved up.”

Chen Pingping slowly raised his head, his expression remained unchanged, but a strange emotion gradually filled his heart. He had already done so much and waited for so long in order for His Majesty the Emperor to make up his mind, and finally waited for the moment when the Emperor opened his mouth.

“You are outside the palace, I am inside.”

Emperor Qing slowly closed his eyes.

That night, the thirteen city gate divisions of Kyoto received the palace’s warrant and the Supervisory Academy’s approved intelligence book, and the opening of Kyoto’s city gates was delayed by half an hour. In the early morning light, the townspeople who were ready to enter the city carried fruits, vegetables and meat, and formed a long line outside the city gates, their faces full of confusion and disbelief.

Kyoto seldom has the precedent of delaying the opening of the city gates, but according to the report of the officials and soldiers in the front, last night, there was a spy from Dongyi City intending to infiltrate the Supervisory Yuan, so at this time, Kyoto is on the rampage of the sea arrests, in order to prevent the spy from escaping from the city, the thirteen city gates division is heavily guarded.

The people suddenly calmed down, no one had any more complaints, they were only cursing those East Barbarians spies who didn’t know how to live in low voices.

And within Kyoto, the Supervisory Academy, which was personally headed by Chen Pingping, had already acted as early as the early hours of the morning. Lord Dean had been staying in Chen Yuan for the past few years, and the Supervisory Court was under Fan Xian’s direct command, and now once he took the authority of the Supervisory Court back into his hands, the speed and stealth of the Supervisory Court’s actions had suddenly reverted to an unprecedentedly horrifying level, and in less than an hour, the Supervisory Court had already covertly taken control of four mansions.

The Kyoto guard division did not receive any news, the officers and soldiers patrolling the night were dumbfounded as they watched those officials of the Supervisory Yuan wearing black official uniforms walking busily, and hurriedly reported to their superiors, not knowing what major events had occurred in Kyoto.

The over a thousand forbidden troops that were arching the imperial city also did not move, just quietly guarding the gates of the imperial palace.

The Kyoto guard commander who was just promoted by the Emperor of Qing, is a general who followed the great prince’s western expedition the year before, heard the subordinate’s report, he haphazardly dressed in clothes and rushed to the outside of the palace, however …… only saw a calm and abnormal, without the slightest movement of the palace city.

The sleepy eyed Eunuch Hou with a group of guards stood behind the forbidden army and indifferently refused the request of this Lord Commander to enter the palace to report.

Not long after, the eldest prince, who was still sleeping in the Prince of Harmony’s residence, also rode his horse to the palace, however, even his request to enter the palace was calmly but firmly rejected by Eunuch Hou.

The Grand Prince and the guard commander exchanged glances, both seeing the uneasiness and vigilance in each other’s hearts. At this time, the sky was not yet bright, but there were dark clouds drifting over from the high sky, shrouding Kyoto a little darker, those secret agents and officials of the Supervisory Board were all on the move, but these two big shots in charge of Kyoto’s guards did not know what was going on at all.

The commander of the Kyoto guard carefully glanced at the Grand Prince and said, “Marshal, should we go to the Supervisory Court to ask?”

In the Western Expeditionary Army, this commander was the Grand Prince’s sidekick, so it was still customary to address him as Grand Marshal. The Grand Prince slapped his forehead in chagrin after being stunned, the Supervisory Academy came out in full force today, it must be the palace that sent the decree, and the main thing is definitely President Chen, other people don’t dare to ask President Chen face to face, but what are they afraid of?

A few moments later, these two led their own soldiers from the entrance of the Imperial City to turn into the Supervisory Yuan, when entering the courtyard, did not receive any obstruction, they saw that old cripple by the shallow pool in the garden.

“Dean, what happened?” The Grand Prince looked at Chen Pingping and asked directly.

Chen Pingping did not look up and said, “Nothing, last night an expert from Dongyi City sneaked into the courtyard and stole away quite a bit of precious information, I entered the capital overnight and went to the palace to ask for an imperial decree, and at this point in time the city is being searched all over.”

The Grand Prince frowned, knowing in his heart that this was a false statement, what kind of spy entering the capital would alert Chen Pingping? It would also cause the gates of the palace to be closed?

The commander of the Kyoto guards respectfully requested, “Old Dean, what needs the cooperation of the Kyoto guards?”

“Xie Su ah ……” Chen Pingping glanced at the guard commander and sighed: “You just took office not long ago, you have to hurry to grasp the Kyoto guards in the hands of the good, nowadays you just have an empty position, but even the soldiers under you can not make, how to cooperate? You can’t even move the soldiers under you, how can you cooperate?”

Commander Xie Su was stunned, his mouth was bitter, he knew that Dean Chen was telling the truth, the Kyoto guard was first held by the Ye family for twenty years, and then the second son of the Qin family was taking care of it, the Ye and Qin families didn’t know how many cronies were stuffed into the Kyoto guard, with the status of the two families in the military, he was an outsider to the Western Expeditionary Army, if he wanted to get a full grasp of the whole thing, the difficulty would be too great indeed.

The eldest prince asked worriedly: ”Uncle Chen, you give the truth, is the matter big? Why are the palace gates closed?”

“It is a small matter.” Chen Pingping calmly said, “It will only take half an hour and nothing will go wrong.”

“Right.” He sat on the wheelchair and said, “His Majesty has decreed that today’s court meeting will be postponed for half an hour, so you guys go to all the mansions and spread the word, lest those old guys from Shu Wu wait outside the palace for a long time and curse their mothers.”

Another half an hour, the Grand Prince was worried, but knew that President Chen would not be honest with himself until it was over.

Chen Pingping finally said, “But there are a few mansions, so you don’t need to go and spread the word, my people have already gone.”

The people from the Supervisory Academy had already been dispatched, sent to the Hechi Square where the civilian settlement was located, and with the cooperation of the Kyoto Prefectural Office, a group of hostile and ruthless men who were still asleep were eliminated in one fell swoop, and although those jianghu men fought hard to resist, in the end, at the cost of more than a dozen corpses, they were still forced to lower their heads and be tied with black cords.

Another team of manpower from the Supervisory Academy came to the residence of several Imperial Historians of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and very roughly pressed these several Imperial Historians, who were known for their iron bones, to the ground, not caring at all about the so-called Scholarly Disgrace, and directly escorted them to the Da Lisi, and a wave of panic and crying broke out in the residences of the Imperial Historians.

Supervisory Yuan’s team, a young man with a black hat to cover his face frowned, to the side of a head of Mu Tie said: “Mu adults, these are after all the Duzhaoyuan Royal Historian, even if his majesty also has more tolerance, rumors that the proceedings are not guilty of …… you just like this haphazardly arrested, are not afraid of on his majesty’s reputation I’m not afraid of the damage to His Majesty’s reputation?”

“Mr. He, you are now the executive pen of the Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office.” Mu Tie said respectfully, “As for how to settle the matter, it is up to you to arrange it.”

It turned out that this person was He Zongwei. He was precisely the imperial historian that Emperor Qing had inserted into the Supervisory Yuan in the previous blood change, and he did not know what Chen Pingping was thinking, but he even allowed this person to follow the Supervisory Yuan and take part in the actions against the Capital Inspection Yuan.

He Zongwei snorted coldly, knowing that if he stepped in after dawn and cooperated with the Supervisory Yuan to put this group of royal historians in jail, his reputation would be all over, but he is also an extremely smart person, of course, he knows that the action in the early hours of this morning is the palace’s intention, and also gradually sniffing out that this is His Majesty’s sweeping up the only bit of power that the Princess can rely on.

So he didn’t dare to have any objections.

He was just puzzled, Kyoto had been peaceful some time ago, why would His Majesty suddenly disallow the Eldest Princess?

The third team from the Supervisory Yuan was at Yan Mansion at this time.

The cold-faced Yan Bingyun was holding the order of the court in her hand, looking at Yan Xingshu kneeling in front of her, and slowly but firmly reading out the charges of Yan Xingshu of the Ministry of Revenue, one by one, each one of them was not a profoundly heartfelt and monstrous crime.

The unkempt Yan Xingshu knelt on the ground, listening to these charges, his body has been a little soft, he knows that until the critical moment, his majesty will not be able to use these charges to dispose of himself as the ministry minister in any case, and since these charges have been thrown out, it means that his majesty really wants to exterminate himself!

Why?

There was only one reason, over the years, he had gotten a little too close to the Eldest Princess. Yan Xingshu thought sadly in his heart, but still wailed in despair, ”I want to see His Majesty’s warrant! I want to see the warrant! Your Supervisory Court is not allowed to arbitrarily interrogate third rank officials without a warrant!”

Yan Bingyun glanced at him and shook his head, taking out the warrant and waving it in front of his eyes. Yan Xingshu, the hallowed Minister of the Ministry of Revenue’s eyes went black, and he actually fainted from the shock of this hand collar.

There are several ways to monitor the officials in action, because the time chosen in the early hours of the morning, it is the time when all the music is quiet, most of the officials in Kyoto and the elders are asleep, so the action went extremely smoothly, less than half an hour’s time, most of the officials in Kyoto and the Princess is too deeply involved in the officials, were invited back to the monitoring of the Institute of the Heavenly Prison or the Da Lisi’s hayloft.

The last way of the Supervisory Yuan officials in a quiet mansion waiting patiently outside, they have been this mansion surrounded for a long time, has not acted, is waiting for the return of the news from various places.

This way of officials did not have a leading lord, nor did they carry a decree with them, not even a copy of the court order issued by Chen Pingping herself, their composition was the simplest, all of them were men from the six departments.

Because they don t need to enter that mansion to pass the decree, the decree they received is …… to enter this mansion, strictly forbidden to talk with anyone in the mansion, and directly kill everyone.

On a normal day, the sky should already be fish-belly white, however, today the clouds were too thick, and the sky was still as dull as ever.

Fei Suke with a head of dazzling hair walked out from the street corner beside the mansion, nodded to the six assassins surrounding the mansion, and then left.

The assassins of the six divisions swarmed in, however, they did not encounter any resistance. They know clearly that this mansion hides the most powerful force of the eldest princess, the most secret information, the most intimate beloved, and the most …… yet there is no resistance.

All the Xinyang masters, still in their sleep have already been mesmerized by the poison laid down by Fei Jie, and occasionally there are a few masters with profound internal strength, under the service of the swordsmen of the six divisions, they also immediately return to the Yellow Springs in their souls, and fall into a permanent slumber.

A courtyard of dead people in the residence.

Xinyang’s chief strategist Huang Yi looked at the six swordmen rushing through the door with despair on his face, the other day, this strategist had been killed by Fan Xian with poison and half of his life, and today he was poisoned again by Fan Xian’s master, and he long ago did not have any chance to fight back.

He is just a little bit unwilling, his mind has not yet played enough of a role in the history of the Qing State, not even a star and a half of traces left, but …… to die.

A cold sword, interrupting his thinking, stabbed his throat and let him die.

Entering the backyard, the sword hands of the six divisions even did not give those young and beautiful men any chance to speak and beg for mercy, and with extremely fast speed, they killed them, and then began to dispose of the corpses.

Only no one noticed that just before the six division swordmen rushed into the Elder Princess’s other residence, the moment Fei Jie started to plant the poison, a man called Yuan Hong Dao, the close friend of Minister Lin back then, the strategist who was most trusted by the Elder Princess for more than a year, full of shocked and pale colors, escaped from that dog hole behind the residence.