Chapter 325 The Prison of Chang'an Mansion of the Han Dynasty
…
Ma Su was not happy at all for his luck in escaping assassination. The scene that happened at the banquet deeply touched him.
Originally, he was very confident in his control of the Shu-Han court. He believed that he could rely on his huge military exploits and prestige to make all civil and military officials bow to him just as they bowed to Zhuge Liang. Then, with the power to control the world's soldiers and horses, he could control the Ji-Han Empire.
The direction of travel of the giant ship.
But when he actually saw the death of his substitute, he realized that the intrigues and bloodshed in the temple were even more cruel and stateless than the fighting on the battlefield. In this court where the world's elite gathered, he
It is like a small boat in the stormy sea, powerlessly rising and falling with the waves, unable to fully control its own destiny.
Every official standing in the court has his own political demands and interest groups. The boundaries between right and wrong are so blurred here, and only interests are eternal.
Even if what he is doing is for the sake of His Majesty, the country, and the people... but so what?
As long as he blocks the interests of others and blocks the way for others to rise, others will come to kill him by any means necessary!
Everything is so brutal and direct.
Frankly speaking, this is the first time that Ma Su has faced the true nature of politics, which is cold-blooded and unreasonable.
He finally realized that he was not a qualified politician.
Especially when he learned that his assassin was Wang Ping, Ma Di even felt that he could forgive Wang Ping if he had not committed suicide.
In the final analysis, the root cause of the assassination was insufficient communication.
Originally, Wang Ping, who was demoted to a civilian, was the spy he sent to Soochow. Although it was in the form of blackmail, the two of them were in the same boat anyway.
However, something unexpected happened later, and Ma Su drastically changed his plan to attack Jiaozhou. This caused Lu Xun, who was originally Sun Quan's right-hand man, to become Sun Quan's strong enemy. The two then fought fiercely to compete for Jingzhou, and they fought fiercely for years.
Wang Ping, who had been staying in Jingzhou as an undercover agent, also broke away from the organization and lost contact.
Later, Ma Di returned to the front line of the Northern Expedition and gradually forgot about Wang Ping's undercover incident.
Unexpectedly, when they met again, the two had become life-and-death enemies. Although the two had been at odds with each other since the Battle of Jieting, and they disliked each other, they did not rise to the level of life-or-death struggle.
Wang Ping's death has to be said to be a tragedy.
Therefore, when the shock of the assassination gradually subsided, another emotion gradually came to Ma Su's heart. He felt a certain sense of guilt for Wang Ping about the Jingzhou incident, but he felt more sympathy for Wang Ping. If
If it weren't for his forcing and mistakes, Wang Ping would never have ended up like this, at least he wouldn't have died.
With mixed feelings, Ma Di pardoned Wang Ping's family.
But the investigation into the assassination is not over.
His intuition told him that the matter was by no means as simple as it seemed, and that this was by no means a simple private vendetta.
According to the report of the official responsible for investigating the matter: the disfigured Wang Ping appeared in Chang'an City more than two months ago. Some enthusiastic witnesses said that they saw a man with a pockmarked face entering and exiting the Ministry of Household Affairs.
Mansion.
As the investigation deepened, more key information was revealed one by one - five days before the assassination, someone saw Shi Yangyi, the director of the Prime Minister's Office, entering and leaving the Office of the Minister of Household Affairs.
Based on these two pieces of key information, Ma Di quickly figured out the whole story. Yang Yi, Fei Yi, and Wang Ping conspired to kill him.
But there was one more thing that Ma Su couldn't figure out. Every crime was committed with a motive, whether it was fame or fortune, or hatred or enemies.
It makes sense that Wang Ping had hatred due to misunderstanding and suppression, so he chose to take a desperate risk to assassinate him; it is not surprising that Yang Yi had an old grudge and her future was blocked, so she had the idea of assassinating him.
So what is Fei Yi doing?
Ma Su believed that he had no direct interest in Fei Yi.
Firstly, the two of them did not interact much. Secondly, Fei Yi was originally a junior in the Shu-Han court. Even if the world was not unified, he still had Yang Yi, Jiang Wan, and Dong Yun in front of him. In addition, after the world was unified, Wei and Wu
A large number of talented people poured into the court, and Fei Yi's ranking dropped directly to outside the twenty places.
Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Dan, Sima Fu, Chen Qun, Gao Rou, etc., etc., everyone is ranked higher than Fei Yi.
Take Zhuge Jin for example. After Soochow surrendered, Zhuge Jin was fully qualified to become one of the four ministers, and it was not impossible to even become the chief minister.
It's just that Zhuge Liang was the prime minister at that time, in charge of all internal and external affairs, and his third brother Zhuge Jun was the captain of Changshui, in charge of the imperial guards. If Zhuge Jin was appointed as the auxiliary minister again, then the three Zhuge brothers would really have power over the government and the opposition.
Control everything - it was based on this consideration that Zhuge Liang rejected the ministers' request to recommend Zhuge Jin as his internal assistant, and only let his brother become an ordinary Zhonglang officer.
No matter which angle you look at it, Fei Yi had to wait a long time to get to the top.
Therefore, Ma Su believed that he had no conflict of interest with Fei Yi, but it was an indisputable fact that Fei Yi participated in this plan.
This fact made Ma Su furious, so he wanted to arrest Fei Yi immediately and bring the whole matter to light. Therefore, he issued an order to the Tingwei Imperial Army to arrest Fei Yi and Yang Yi immediately.
However, after Yang Yi and Fei Yi were arrested, before the officials from the Ministry of Punishment could find out the results of the interrogation, another rumor began to spread in Chang'an City: Ma Su used the assassination to make a fuss about the assassination, intending to purge the disobedient former Shu officials from the court.
, to achieve an ulterior purpose.
This very lethal rumor spread from nowhere, and instantly spread throughout the court, throughout Chang'an City, and also reached the ears of His Majesty Liu Chan, where it became more and more intense.
Even though Ma Su's authority was enough to silence everyone and not dare to openly oppose anything, the secret criticism still made him feel the feeling of "the Duke of Zhou is afraid of the day of rumors", making him restless and restless, like a light on his back.
Because the assassination incident seems clear at a glance, it is a vendetta, from Wang Ping's revenge vendetta against Ma Di. If Ma Di deliberately equates this incident with a conspiracy and arrests the ministers based on groundless speculation, not only his prestige in the court will be affected
If you waver, it will give other ministers more excuses.
Officialdom has its own rules. It is impossible for you to arrest two people just because you saw Yang Yi entering the House of Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue (Fei Yi's home) on the grounds that you suspected that they were conspiring to kill you.
In the same way, it is impossible for you to regard Fei Yi as the murderer just because you saw Wang Ping entering the Shangshu Mansion of the Transfer Department two months ago.
You have to provide direct evidence.
Otherwise, you, a great general, are abusing your power, persecuting high-ranking officials and eliminating dissidents.
This is a situation Ma Su doesn't want to see.
After weighing the matter again and again, Ma Su let out a long sigh, smashed the case in front of him with a slap, and then said in a business-like tone to Xiang Chong, the Minister of Punishment who came to ask for an order: "Check again, if no other information is found, it will take three days."
Then let them both go."
When giving this order, a stern look flashed in Ma Su's eyes, but Xiang Chong, who was bowing his head and cupping his hands, did not see it.
When Xiang Chong returned to Tingwei's cell with this order, he saw Yang Yi and Fei Yi holding the cell bars with both hands and shouting from a distance. They could not accept the fact that they had become prisoners no matter what.
Especially Yang Yi, with an expression of disbelief, he rattled the chains on his body and shouted at the top of his lungs: "I am not guilty! Why did you arrest me? I want to see His Majesty! I want to see you."
Prime Minister!"
The cell leader knocked on the cell fence with a stick and said impatiently: "This is an order from the general. Sirs, I advise you to be honest and don't make it difficult for us!"
Yang Yi continued to shout: "I am the chief minister of the prime minister's office, a high official in the dynasty... the general has no right to arrest me! I want to meet..."
"We are just following orders. If you two adults argue again, I won't be polite!" The prison boss interrupted Yang Yi impatiently and stretched out his killing stick to hit his fingers on the cell bars.
Yang Yi was frightened for a moment and quickly retracted his fingers. Then the prison head stretched out two fingers and crossed his own eyes, then crossed his crosses to Yang Yi and Fei Yi, warning them not to make any noise, and then he felt relieved.
He turned around, sat back at the wooden table a few feet away, and concentrated on eating the wine and food with his colleagues.
Standing at the door, Xiang Chong sighed, and instead of telling the two of them that they would be released in three days, he turned around and left the cell.
Forget it, let them calm down in Tingwei Prison. In any case, the conditions here are much better than those in the Penal Department Prison.
Xiang Chong, who was well aware that Fei Yi and Yang Yi were following him, could conclude with a certain degree of certainty that these two people had unclear connections with Wang Ping and were closely related to Ma Di's assassination. However, because Ji Han inherited the Han system, he had a saying that "courtesy is not as good as common people"
According to the rule of "You can't punish a doctor", nothing can be gained by simply interrogating, so he did not choose to waste his words on interrogating the two people from the beginning.
Moreover, a case like this does not actually need to be tried at all. As long as the general feels that these two people are guilty, then they are dead. If the general feels that killing the two at this time will have a bad impact, then they will be fine.
.
Xiang Chong has a deep understanding of this point.
Chang'an Mansion of the Han Dynasty, Tingwei Prison.
Yang Yi sat down against the wall and stopped making any noise. Rather than saying that he accepted this cruel reality, it is better to say that after the initial anger subsided, fear and fear surged up, leaving him without the confidence to shout again.
Yelled.
The only belief that supports him now is that he hopes that the rumor spread by Fei Yi can ferment as soon as possible, create a deterrent effect, and then get the two of them out of prison.
For most of the next three days, Yang Yi clung to this faint hope and leaned motionless in the prison, staring straight ahead with her eyes fixed. She looked very desolate.
Fei Yi was in a much better state than Yang Yi. He was eating and drinking when he was supposed to, as if nothing was wrong, and he was even looking forward to a three-law trial.
He will let the people of the Sanfa Division see what it means to have iron teeth and bronze teeth, and to argue with unparalleled strength!
Outside.
The prison boss looked at these two officials who had become more honest with satisfaction, and felt filled with a sense of accomplishment.
No matter whether these two people are celebrities in front of the emperor outside or close confidants of the prime minister, as long as they enter here, if they are dragons, you have to be coiled by me, and if they are tigers, you have to lie down with me.
Otherwise, I can't kill him!
In the blink of an eye, three days passed.
The trial that Fei Yi had been waiting for for a long time never came. So Fei Yi knew that he would not die, so he said to Yang Yi calmly: "Weigong, we should be able to go out in less than half a day."
"Really?" Yang Yi's eyes lit up, then dimmed quickly, her tone a little unbelieving, "Gong Wei is joking again."
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the voice of the prison boss coming from outside.
