"Let us go quickly!" Seeing Lao Liu, the academic officers became commotion again.
"You know very well why we arrested you." Zhu Zhen was too lazy to talk nonsense to them and said straightforwardly: "You might as well tell the truth. This time you incited students to go on strike and violated the court's taboo. You are all doomed.
Already."
"Pure slander!"
"You are so slanderous!" The academic officers naturally refused to admit it.
"Of course I have evidence." Zhu Zhen waved his hand, and two slaves came out carrying an old man who was so haggard that he could not walk steadily.
"Master Qianfu..." the academic officers exclaimed. Except for his chapped lips, his whole body was intact, but his spirit was extremely depressed. His eyes were as red as a rabbit, as if he hadn't slept for several days.
If you look closely, you will see that his eyelids are held up by small sticks, making it impossible to close them even if he wants to.
Chen Qianfu's reaction was extremely slow. After a while, he slowly raised his head, his eyes slowly moved, and he glanced at the crowd. It was not until he saw Lao Liu that he slowly said: "I want to drink water and sleep..."
"
"Then are you willing to recruit?" Zhu Zhen asked.
"Ken, I can do anything..." Chen Qianfu hesitated every word and answered with difficulty.
Lao Liu waved his hand, and the subordinates took Chen Qianfu down and brought Jin Wenzheng out.
After all, Assistant Professor Jin is young and his physical condition is much better than that of Mr. Qianfu, but he still has blood-red eyes and chapped lips.
His will was far less firm than Chen Qianfu's. As soon as he saw Lao Liu, he immediately knelt down and confessed with tears in his eyes.
"Oh, sir, I deserve death. I confess everything. Please stop torturing me. I really can't bear it anymore..."
Zhu Zhen waved his hand again, and the subordinate dragged him down again. Assistant Professor Jin was still crying: "I was wrong. I will cooperate with you in whatever you ask me to do. Just give me some water to drink..."
"..." The academic officials shuddered as they watched, wondering what kind of torture the two of them had experienced. Their confidence in themselves that they would rather die than surrender also dropped sharply.
"Did you see it with your own eyes? You can say nothing. The court also has enough evidence to kill you all!" Zhu Zhen's cold eyes swept over the academic officials and said in a deep voice: "Those who are not convinced can stand now.
Come out and I will stop talking nonsense to you."
"..." All the academic officers looked at each other, but no one moved.
"But Lord Jijiu can't bear to see you all confused, so I beg you not to overdo it all." Zhu Zhen changed the topic again:
"We have to listen to the wine sacrifice, so I will give you five places - the first five who confess, plead guilty, and are willing to cooperate will be exempted from guilt and go home, and they will not be held accountable by the court in the future."
"Listen clearly, there are only five places for amnesty. Starting from the sixth one, even if you confess, you can only be dealt with according to the law, and you are basically dead." After Zhu Zhen finished speaking, he ordered Teacher Luo to separate these academic officers first.
Imprisoned.
When the waiters took the dejected academic officers away, Song Jijiu finally couldn't help but said: "Your Majesty, is it too much to arrest all the academic officers? Most of them should just be coerced...
"
"Clean the house before you can put in new furniture." Zhu Zhen said lightly: "Whether they were coerced or took the initiative, they are not suitable for the future Imperial College, or they are just swept away."
As he spoke, he glanced at Song Ne and said, "Besides, didn't we give you a favor?"
"I accept the kindness..." Song Jijiu said in a low voice, "But there is no need to put dead bones in the old grave."
"Stop being pretentious here." Zhu Zhen found that it was useless to talk to this old man. He had to scold him and scold him to feel comfortable.
"Both of you are responsible for this incident, and your responsibility is even greater - not to mention that you are rigid and ruthless, giving others the opportunity to sow discord. As a scholar of the Imperial Academy, you are usually careless and let others go.
The deputies contacted each other privately and were unaware of what was happening. What do you do for food? You can never escape a serious dereliction of duty!"
"Yes." Song Ne nodded and said with a painful expression: "What you said is right. I am old and unworthy. I have failed the emperor's high hopes. I really deserve death."
"That's right, you deserve death! But now for the sake of the overall situation, I can only try to get you out first!" Zhu Zhen said in a deep voice:
"Everything is a conspiracy to subvert Guoxue and restore the imperial examination. Do you understand?!"
"..." Song Ne hesitated, nodded and said, "Understood."
~~
As expected, all the academic officials quickly gave up...
There were three or five of them living in a small cell.
In order to make their stay more "comfortable", Lao Liu also thoughtfully asked people to remove all obstructions such as tables, chairs, beds, etc., so that the place would be more spacious.
At night, they slept on the ground with their clothes on, and were not given food or drink. They were not allowed to leave the house... People were locked in, and their days were almost like years.
What was even more damaging to their nerves was the sound of the door opening next door. At this time, they would all lie on the crack of the door to see if someone wanted to confess.
They called the man a "softhead", but they were secretly worried that the number of amnesty places was one less...
Seeing that the quota was about to be exhausted, they finally couldn't bear it anymore and rushed to knock on the door and shouted, "We also have to confess!"
~~
Looking at the confessions in front of them, they basically confessed to Wang Siye instigating them to incite students to strike classes.
He also confessed that Wang Siye had been instructing them all year round to expand and extreme the regulations on wine offerings and schools to increase the pain and resentment of all students. He even deliberately pushed some students with problems into desperate situations and forced them to commit suicide...
While sorting out the confession, Teacher Luo couldn't help but sigh and said repeatedly: "Go back and cut open Wang Siye's belly to see if he has a heart of a wolf and a dog's lungs inside?"
"Wang Siye is just a pawn of Chen Qianfu and those people." Zhu Zhen said coldly: "Even Chen Qianfu himself is a pawn who crossed the river..."
But now was not the time to delve deeper. He ordered in a deep voice: "Give those academic officials the pen and ink. Let each of them copy the confession a hundred times, sign and stamp it, and send it to the students to see how stupid they are."
"Okay." Teacher Luo nodded, and said with some schadenfreude: "It's a pity that those young people disappointed His Highness. After all, they didn't persuade all the students to resume classes."
"Who said that?" Zhu Zhen said with a smile: "While you were sorting out your confession in the back room, Ma Junze just came over and told me that their persuasion was successful. As long as the school announces the resumption of classes, all the students will come back to class."
"Really?" Teacher Luo said in surprise: "They have already settled the matter before we even asked for the confession. They are quite capable."
"Of course, if you are not very capable, how can you be a prime minister in the future and turn the tide?" Zhu Zhen said with a proud smile: "Teacher Luo, there is no shame in admitting that there are differences between people. Besides, they are not as good as you in some ways.
.”
"What?"
"They don't know how to write novels!" Zhu Zhen burst into laughter.
