After he came out, He Gui complained to the sky: "Dad, it's true, haven't Zhu Chongba been tricked enough in this life? Now that I have finished tricking him, my son has come to trick me again, and he still wants to be tricked!"
"Don't say that, you can't see what's far away, but don't you know what's close, Fang Guozhen?" He Di then turned around and spoke for his elder brother:
"He is also a surrendered prince, and he was also granted a province to participate in politics, but he always claimed to be ill and did not dare to take office. He stayed in Beijing to recuperate from his illness until he died. Why is your father so honest? Is there anything else you don't understand? He is so honest.
It’s for the sake of the overall situation, and it’s also for the longevity of our family.”
"Can it be the same? Fang Guozhen was beaten to the sea and forced to surrender. We surrendered directly without a single soldier." He Gui blushed and argued. It was as if it was a great shame to be compared with Fang Guozhen.
.
"It might have been different at the beginning, so you can rest assured that you can go back to your hometown and enjoy your old age after becoming an official." He Di sighed: "But as time goes by, everything will be the same. If you still think that you are different, then
Just seeking death."
"..." He Gui was finally moved, and after a while he asked: "Second uncle actually sees it so clearly, why don't you listen to my father?"
"Why don't I listen to him? He taught me these truths." He Di patted his nephew on the shoulder and said softly: "But your father is your father, and the He family is the He family, do you understand?"
"What do you mean?" He Gui has never thought about it this way. In his opinion, his father is the He family, and the He family is his father.
"It is your father who surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, not our He family." He Di said calmly: "Your father has to remain absolutely loyal to the Ming Dynasty and has no choice but to submit. But our He family cannot. We are the leaders of the major clans in Guangdong.
There are things we have to stick to."
"Coming back to this matter, your father is right, otherwise our family will become the outstanding ones, and the King of Chu will have to catch our family and deal with it." He Di finally said to He Gui:
"But we can't say that we are wrong. This is not the same as back then. Failure to submit would have brought military disaster to the whole province. Now we can compete without bloodshed. If we don't dare to fight, we will surrender directly. Let's
The He family will become a laughing stock, and no one will listen to us anymore."
"But dad won't let us use his banner..." He Gui said depressedly.
"Hahaha, you are his son and I am his brother, do you still need to fight under his banner? Do others still regard us as two families?" He Di couldn't help laughing.
"Oh." It suddenly dawned on He Gui, thinking that his father was always so impeccable that no one could find fault.
~~
In the afternoon of the same day, two imperial edicts arrived in Guangzhou.
The other is to suspend the execution and order the King of Chu to retry Dao's accomplices.
Another decree was to appoint the King of Chu as an imperial envoy to patrol Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi, control the civil and military affairs in the three provinces, and do things expediently.
The reason why the imperial edict arrived half a day later than Lao Liu expected was because the prince also sent a document from the Ministry of Personnel along with the imperial edict.
Lao Liu opened it and saw that in the third year of Hongwu's reign, Daotong was recommended as Taichang Si Zanlilang due to his filial piety.
Because the local government that recommended Xiaolian was jointly and severally liable, the province that recommended him carefully examined Daotong's ancestors and clearly recorded the names and identities of his great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and father.
It is mentioned in black and white that his great ancestor Daolian served as the governor of the Xinghua Army on Fujian Road in the Southern Song Dynasty.
This is enough to explain the problem. Because there were no Mongols in the Southern Song Dynasty at that time?
Moreover, it is only in the last twenty years or so that the Mongolians changed their surnames to Han. People in the Tao family have the same surname as Tao in the Five Dynasties. How could they be Mongolians?
"Haha, my eldest brother is really careful." Lao Liu happily handed the document to Lin Zhongmo and smiled at Dao Tong: "Now the Crown Prince has personally helped you confirm your identity, let's see who dares to say that you are a Mongolian!
"
"The prince is so perceptive that even the official himself has forgotten that there is such a thing in the capital." Daotong said with tears of gratitude in his eyes: "At that time, I just wanted to let them go to Hejian Mansion to investigate, but the people who were responsible for the investigation did not
I kept trying to shirk it on the grounds that the journey was too far."
"Your ancestors were obviously from the Southern Song Dynasty, so why did you go to the capital of the Yuan Dynasty, Gyeonggi?" Lin Zhongmo asked while looking at it: "No wonder they would think of slandering you as a Mongolian."
"Of course they were taken captive after the fall of the Song Dynasty." Daotong sighed: "My great-grandfather has been a subjugated slave in Hejian for generations. For generations, he has dreamed of expelling the Tartars and restoring China. Finally, in my generation, I saw him
arrive."
"No wonder." Lin Zhongmo somewhat understood why Daotong was so devoted to his duties, because he had shouldered the long-cherished wishes of generations.
"Well, I announce that the 'Daotong Identity Case' has been officially changed to the 'Daotong Framed Case'." King Chu said happily: "Old Lin, you have received a big gift before you even started investigating. You are very lucky.
"
"I hope the next investigation will go smoothly." Lin Zhongmo said with a smile.
~~
Unfortunately, things backfired, and Lin Zhongmo's subsequent investigation ran into obstacles at every turn...
The next day, in the name of the King of Chu, he asked the Guangdong Procuratorate and the Guangxi Dusi to hand over all the files to him, and the people involved in the case, as well as the officials handling the case, were also required to come along to assist in the investigation.
He plans to start the trial from the source of the case.
However, a few days later, when the Guangdong Dusi official interrogating the case came to report, he was told that the three Mongolian prisoners who had reported on Daotong had died.
"What? Three people died in prison at the same time?" Lin Zhongmo looked at the sixth-grade official opposite in disbelief.
The man's surname was Liu, and he was the commander of the Guangxi capital, Si Duanshi Si Duanshi, and he was accompanied by a ninth-grade sesame officer.
Liu Duanshi then introduced the man and said, "He is Wang Siyu from our Dusi Yamen. Let him report it to Lin Fangbo."
"What's going on?" Lin Zhongmo asked in a deep voice.
Wang Siyuan timidly reported: "Back to Uncle Fang, Guangxi is a smog-stricken land, and epidemics occur frequently. It also happens to be June, and there is an epidemic in the prison. Half of the prisoners died, and even the brothers under the lower officials died of the disease.
Several of them died. The Mongols were even more impatient, and none of them survived."
"Those Mongols, do you mean there are more than three of them?" Lin Zhongmo asked.
"Yes, twenty-seven in total." Wang Siyu said, shrinking his neck.
"Okay, very good..." Lin Zhongmo shuddered on a hot day, and had a more real understanding of the cruelty and evil intentions of those people.
Liu Duangshi also conveyed the story of how they captured the prisoners and accidentally learned about the relationship between Zhidong and Daoyuan during the interrogation to the Guangdong Ancha Division. The Guangdong Ancha Division also sent people to interrogate the story and reported it fluently to Lin Zhongmo.
Lin Zhongmo sneered after hearing this: "But now it has been found that Daozhi County has nothing to do with the bandit leader Daoyuan. How did those Mongolian prisoners think of slandering him as being of the same race?"
