After Zhu Yuanzhang had finished his attack, he looked coldly at the pale-faced civil servants and said:
"We've finished talking, do you have anything else to say?"
"..." After a long silence, he snorted contemptuously: "If you have nothing to say, then just retreat."
Just when Eunuch Wu was about to sing "Retreat from the Dynasty", he saw Li Shilu, the minister of Dali Temple, leaving his duties and loudly saying:
"Your Majesty Li Shilu has something to say!" He spoke with a Shandong accent. He was obviously from the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, and he should not be looked down upon.
"Speak." Zhu Yuanzhang held the jade belt around his waist with both hands and looked at Li Shilu coldly.
"Yes, the emperor is creating a legacy for the ages. Wherever he points his mind, he will show his descendants the course of the law for eternity. How can he abandon the sacred knowledge and worship the heresy? Far away from the royal way and abandon the sub-holy evil?"
Seeing that Boss Zhu was unmoved, Li Shilu sighed and continued: "I know that your Majesty is now deeply indulged in fallacies and heresies. Even if you want to shake the status of Ya Sheng, your Majesty will definitely not listen to my remarks.
So I return the royal ceremonial wat to His Majesty, and beg for permission to serve and return to my hometown!"
After saying that, he slammed the ivory wat tablet in his hand to the ground.
Although his words were neither quick nor slow, neither humble nor overbearing, his actions revealed his true emotions.
With a click, the wat board broke into three pieces... The whole court was shocked.
The civil servants looked at Li Shilu with admiration, and many of them were eager to resign with him. However, they were worried about the emperor's reaction, so they all looked at the golden platform.
I saw Boss Zhu's face turned into a pig's kidney with anger. Looking at the wat board broken into three pieces, he nodded and said:
"Okay, okay, since you don't want to be our official, then be more thorough and follow the example of Boyi and Shuqi who don't eat Zhousu, and you won't eat our food either!"
As he spoke, Zhu Yuanzhang roared: "Catch him and beat him to death on the spot!"
The men with swords rushed up immediately, pushed Li Shilu to the ground, then two held his hands, two held his feet, lifted him high, and gave him a heavy slap on the hard stone floor!
Amidst the exclamations of the officials, there was a muffled thud, and Li Shilu was thrown so hard that his orifices bled. He twitched a few times and then stopped moving.
The civil servants were so shocked that no one made a sound at all...
"Huh, it's not a pity to die!" Zhu Yuanzhang waved his sleeves and turned away.
"Retreat from the imperial court..." Eunuch Wu, who was just waking up from a dream, hurriedly sang loudly until the emperor stepped down from the golden platform.
Hu Weiyong and Cao Guogong hurriedly shouted to send off my emperor, but today's greetings were sparse and weak...
~~
As soon as the court was over, the civil servants quickly gathered around to check whether Li Shilu was alive or dead.
"Zong Kong, Zong Kong!" Everyone shouted, but he didn't respond.
Xue Xiang knelt down, touched his nose with his fingers, and said sadly after a while: "The man is gone."
"Ah!" The hearts of the civil servants suddenly sank, and many of them burst into tears.
When they scrambled to lift Li Shilu up, they discovered that he had been bleeding from the brain. It turned out that he had been knocked to the back of the head just now...
"Brother Zong Kong, you died for Mencius, and you deserved to die!" Zheng Jiucheng sighed, and the cries broke out. The civil servants knelt down to see Li Shilu off.
Under the golden platform, the prince looked at this scene with a stern expression and said to Lao Liu: "You see, Confucianism has no shortage of defenders of benevolence and righteousness."
"Yes." Lao Liu said it was false to say that he was not shocked. This was the first time he had seen such a scene, and he was suddenly moved by Alexander. "In this case, I think Shilin will fight to the death with us."
"So even if you are an emperor, you can't do whatever you want." The prince sighed: "Father, you shouldn't touch Mencius today."
"Yes, that's their god card. If you use it, it will stir up a hornet's nest." Lao Liu nodded. In fact, he had a good impression of Mencius. But he didn't expect that the old thief had such a strong grudge against Mencius.
"Damn it, I won't stop crying." The fourth child walked to the other side of the prince and stood there, looking unkindly at the civil servants who were kneeling and crying around Li Shilu's body. "I'll drive them away."
"Don't add fuel to the fire anymore." Zhu Biao shook his head decisively and said, "Now we are very passive."
"Then let them mourn here?" Lao Si said unhappily.
"It's better than crying outside the palace, right?" Zhu Biao said solemnly.
"It's true." The fourth child thought about it. At least he was crying here so that no one outside the palace could see it.
"You two go back first." Zhu Biao said to the two brothers again.
"Yes, brother." The fourth and sixth brothers responded and stepped back.
The prince walked down the steps and headed towards the group of civil servants.
"Prince, be careful." Li Wenzhong hurried over and whispered.
"It doesn't matter." The prince shook his head and walked into the civil servants.
Li Wenzhong and Hu Weiyong quickly followed, one on the left and the other on the right protecting the Crown Prince.
Sure enough, as soon as the prince walked in, the civil servants surrounded him, crying and shouting:
"Prince, you really want us to make the decision!"
"Your Majesty, you are also a disciple of Confucius and Mencius. You can't just watch the road collapse and remain indifferent!"
"Yes, Your Majesty, you can't just ignore it!"
Zhu Biao nodded and raised his hand to signal them to stop talking.
After the civil servants calmed down, he asked: "What was the name of the official who was beaten to death with a stick?"
"My name is Chen Wenhui." Someone replied, "He is a censor."
"Tell him to go down and don't touch his family first. Later I will advise my father that this is not a rebellion and will not bring harm to my wife and children." Zhu Biao said to Hu Weiyong.
"Yes, Prince." Hu Weiyong responded obediently.
"I would like to thank His Highness Chen Wenhui for your kindness." When the civil servants saw that there was a way out, they hurriedly went further and said: "But Prince, this is not enough. The sage was expelled from the Guozi School, and the inferior sage was expelled from the Confucius Temple. The school of the sage
Being degraded, the imperial examination was dismembered... Our Holy Religion has reached its most dangerous moment, and we can no longer remain silent. We must speak out for the Holy Religion!"
"I will definitely speak for you, but my father is very angry at the moment, so whatever I say now is in vain." The prince sighed and said: "You send Li Tingwei's body back first, and wait until your father calms down.
Come down and I will explain it to you."
"Your Highness, it's not that we don't obey Xie's will, it's just that we really can't go out like this." Zheng Jiucheng said with tears:
"We came in carrying Ya Sheng's tablet, but we didn't win anything and even made it impossible for him to go back to the Confucian Temple. If we just left like this, we wouldn't know where to put Ya Sheng's tablet!"
"Yes, Chen Wenhui, Li Shilu can't die in vain. The emperor must change his mind, otherwise we won't leave!" At this time, a minister said something, which immediately triggered the agreement of the civil servants:
"We will kneel here and wait for the emperor to take back his orders."
"If the emperor doesn't take it back for a day, we will kneel for a day until we all kneel and die in front of Fengtian Gate!" The civil servants reached a consensus and decided to kneel together to remonstrate to the end...