An hour later, Hou Hanwu was sitting in the torture room of the court prison, looking at the guards who were being tortured not far away with a gloomy expression.

After his investigation, he found that it was these jailers who were bribed by Wei's spies and secretly harmed Duke Zhuang Han Geng.

"ah"

"Please have mercy on me."

"Young ones are forced to do so...ah!"

I saw only a few jailers. Each jailer was taken care of by two Hanwu guards with whips soaked in water. They were beaten to death several times.

In fact, they had already confessed and told what happened: Yesterday noon, thieves who did not know the details came to them with several packages of copper and silver. They threatened and lured them, forcing them to bring several of the thieves' companions into the prison and took the opportunity to arrest them.

Zhuang Gong Han Geng killed him.

However, even if these jailers confessed, Hou Hanwu would still order the torture to stop, as if he wanted to beat them to death.

The reason is that Hou Hanwu is furious at this moment: it is these extremely stupid fools who promoted the Wei people's conspiracy and pushed his country into a pit of fire.

At this moment, a guard came in and reported: "Hou, Wei Qing Ma Kuo is here."

Hou Hanwu glanced at the door of the torture chamber, nodded slightly, and motioned to the guards guarding the entrance of the torture chamber to let Wei Qing Ma Kuo in.

A moment later, Wei Qing Ma Kuo strode into the execution room. When he saw the jailers being tortured, he was slightly startled: "Hou, are you...?"

Hou Hanwu let out a long breath, stood up and motioned for Ma Kuo to follow him to the execution room next door.

Ever since Han Wangran temporarily entrusted the country to Han Wu, Han Wu was forced by the huge pressure on his shoulders, and his whole person gradually became suspicious. To put it nicely, he had to do everything personally, but to put it worse, he could not believe the vast majority of people, thinking that

Those people will make secret suggestions to Wei State because of the current situation.

However, Wei Qing Ma Kuo was one of the few people Hou Hanwu trusted, because Ma Kuo was a confidant of his younger brother Han Wangran during his lifetime.

"Ma Kuo, why did you come to the court? Did you hear something?"

After arriving at the torture chamber next door, Hou Hanwu asked.

Ma Kuo hesitated for a moment and said, "I heard rumors spread in the city that Hou captured Duke Zhuang and sent him to prison yesterday, and..." He glanced at Hou Hanwu secretly, but stopped talking.

"What?" Hou Hanwu asked seemingly calmly.

Ma Kuo hesitated for a moment, and finally said bravely: "And finally torture him to death..."

After hearing this, Hou Hanwu was not as angry as Ma Kuo imagined. On the contrary, Han Wu sighed sadly and said bitterly: "Has this matter already spread in the city?"

After hearing this, Ma Kuo opened his eyes wide in surprise and asked in surprise: "Hou, are you serious?"

He looked at Hou Hanwu in disbelief.

He really didn't understand. He had to know that Duke Zhuang Han Geng was not overbearing in his dealings. He was completely different from Duke Han Hu of Kang. Logically speaking, the existence of this person did not pose any threat to Hou Hanwu. He really couldn't figure out why Hou Hanwu wanted to harm Han Geng.

And this is at a time when the country is facing the greatest threat.

Under Ma Kuo's shocked gaze, Hou Hanwu sighed sadly and whispered: "It's not what you think, but..."

With that said, he told Ma Kuo exactly what happened.

Ma Kuo suddenly realized after hearing this: "It turns out to be a treacherous plot by the Wei people."

To be honest, Ma Kuo didn't think that Hou Hanwu's reaction was too fierce. Who told Duke Zhuang Han Geng to deliberately cover up the details of the Wei man? If it were him, he would also be suspicious.

To blame, it is the Wei man who designed this conspiracy who was too cunning and vicious. He linked up all the links and decisively killed Duke Zhuang Han Geng in prison. At the same time, he spread the news in the city that Hou Hanwu had killed Duke Zhuang Han Geng.

Hou Hanwu, who ordered Han Geng to be arrested and imprisoned, found it difficult to defend himself.

"It's my fault."

Hou Hanwu rubbed his brow bones and said tiredly: "It's a shame that I didn't see through the Wei people's plot, and ended up in this situation..."

Wei Qing Ma Kuo opened his mouth and wanted to persuade Hou Hanwu, but in fact, even he felt that Hou Hanwu was too suspicious during this period, as if in Han Wu's eyes, Jidu City was full of people who would defect to Wei at any time.

Rebellion.

After thinking for a while, he changed the subject and said: "The matter has come to this, and it will be useless to regret it... The question is, what should we do now?"

"Are you referring to Le Yi?"

Hou Hanwu glanced at Ma Kuo, and then said melancholy: "Actually, I have been thinking about this issue just now... After thinking about it, the Wei people designed me to 'kill' Han Geng, and the most likely reason was to alienate Le Yi.

He even instigated him to rebel, presumably because Le Yi has caused a lot of obstacles to the Wei army in Shanggu County recently..."

After that, he asked Ma Kuo: "Ma Kuo, in your opinion, is there anyone in the country who can replace Le Yi?"

Ma Kuo was shocked when he heard this. How could he not understand the deeper meaning of Hou Hanwu's words?

He immediately dissuaded him and said: "Hou, you must not do it. If you replace Le Yi, you will fall into the Wei people's trick... According to my opinion, Hou might as well send someone to inform General Le Yi of this matter.

The Marquis did not have many faults, and all his faults lay with the people of Wei. I think General Leyi is also a sensible person, so he will definitely understand."

You want me to place this country’s ‘hope’ on Le Yi’s ‘clear principles’?

Hou Hanwu glanced at Ma Kuo and immediately fell silent.

In fact, he also understood that Ma Kuo's point of view was correct. Wasn't the purpose of the Wei people's plan to kill Zhuang Gong Han Geng just to drive a wedge between him, Han Wu, and Le Yi?

At this time, Han Hou, the chief of guard of Han Wu, came to the execution room, raised his hands and said: "Hou, those jailers have all died."

Hou Hanwu nodded, feeling relieved for a moment.

However, when he thought that Xi Zuo, a Wei man who escaped from Zhuang Gong Han Geng's mansion yesterday, was still at large, his heart was suddenly filled with anger.

After a chaotic conversation with Ma Kuo for a while, Hou Hanwu returned to his mansion.

After returning to the study, Han Wu paced back and forth in the room alone, weighing the pros and cons.

Admittedly, even he felt in his heart that Ma Kuo's view was correct: he had no intention of harming Duke Zhuang Han Geng, but he accidentally fell into the Wei people's trick and was stigmatized for killing the former. As long as he reported it to Han Geng,

Le Yi reveals the truth, and Le Yi may not necessarily hold a grudge for it.

But...what if?

You must know that Shanggu County is his last line of defense in South Korea, and Le Yi is the commander of this line of defense. If Le Yi is like Han Pu, the Marquis of Yuanyi, he secretly had an affair because of the unjust death of Duke Zhuang Han Geng in the imperial prison.

The Wei army was a complete disaster for South Korea. The last army of South Korea might be ruined by Le Yi single-handedly.

Of course, this possibility is actually very small, but it still makes Hou Hanwu almost crazy.

If, if such a thing really happened, how should he explain to his late brother Han Wangran?

Recalling that Han Wangran entrusted this country to him before leaving, Hou Hanwu felt restless.

That day, Hou Hanwu weighed it for an hour, and finally decided to replace Le Yi. He could not sit back and watch the possibility of Le Yi betraying South Korea in the slightest, and would rather abandon it than put it in a crucial position.

But the question is, after Le Yi is removed, who should command the armies?

Yuyang guards Qin Kai?

Acting Governor Sima Shang?

Shanggu to keep Xu Li?

Or are you talking about Bao Yuan, Jin and other generals?

Hou Hanwu thought about it for a long time.

Bao Yuan, Jin, Gong Zhongpeng, Tian Ling and other generals were eliminated first. After all, these generals were defeated by the Wei army so many times that Hou Hanwu lost confidence in them.

In contrast, he pays more attention to Qin Kai, Sima Shang, and Xu Li. Although these three people also suffered defeats under the former Wei Gongzi Run, compared with Bao Yuan, Jin and other long-defeated generals, these three people

The performance is obviously much better.

Among Qin Kai, Sima Shang, and Xu Li, Hou Hanwu was the most inclined to replace Sima Shang as the governor of the county.

There are two reasons. First, Sima Shang is young, energetic and enterprising. He led tens of thousands of Korean troops to defeat Wei Gong Ziyu several times and occupied half of the Wei Kingdom. He was the best among the new Korean generals; second,

Sima Shang was once a general of his lineage, Hou Hanwu, but later Han Wu was captured and taken to Wei as a hostage, so Sima Shang turned to Han Wangran.

However, just when Hou Hanwu was about to decide to replace Le Yi with Sima Shang, he suddenly received news that Sima Shang's cousin Sima had surrendered to the Wei army and was now serving as a general under the Wei army's commander, King Zhao Jiang of Yan.

After learning about this, Hou Hanwu was furious and immediately vetoed his previous decision.

Because he knew very well that Sima Shang was very close to his cousin Sima. Now that Sima had surrendered to Wei, there was no guarantee that Sima Shang would not have two minds.

Suddenly, Hou Hanwu thought of a person, Le Yi's lieutenant Qi Jie.

Han Wu will not look down upon this person just because he is just a deputy general. You must know that the current Shanggu Shou Xu Li was the deputy general of the former Shanggu Shou Ma She, and the current Taiyuan Shou Lecheng was also the former Taiyuan Shou.

Xu Li and Chenggong are both honest and honest lieutenants, but they are still generals capable of shouldering heavy responsibilities.

As far as Han Wu knew, Qijie himself was a fierce general under Le Yi with great military exploits. He had performed well in the previous wars with Wei. What's more important, because Qijie was Le Yi's

deputy general, which means that replacing Le Yi with robbery will not cause too strong dissatisfaction among the Northern Yan Army, which will help Han military general Le Yi's shadow be erased from the Northern Yan Army.

As for whether Qijie's ability can replace Le Yi, Hou Hanwu is not worried. After all, Qijie has been under Le Yi's command for a long time. I believe Qijie has learned a lot about Le Yi's military tactics, not to mention that now Le Yi is already in the army.

Shanggu County has laid the foundation for defense and made some arrangements. As long as the robbery follows Le Yi's previous tactics, it may not be inferior to Le Yi.

Thinking of this, he immediately wrote a letter to the generals in his own hand, and immediately summoned Yan Ju and Zhao Cong, the generals of Jicheng, and ordered them to go to Shanggu County immediately with this general order.

Three days later, Yan Ju and Zhao Cong arrived at Fan Yang in Shanggu County. After convening the generals of the Korean army, they publicly announced the former's transfer order: "Hou Youling, let Qijie replace Le Yi and take charge of the defense of Shanggu County."

After hearing this, all the generals in the tent were shocked, and even Le Yi frowned.

"Are you kidding?!"
To be continued...