The generals of the Yongwang Party and the Donggong Party were fighting each other about the Beiyi Military Camp Incident, so it was impossible to reach a conclusion in just a few days.
But Yong Wang Hongyu was a little anxious, because he was also worried that the autographed letter sent to Cui Xie would fall into the hands of Xiang Wang Hongjing.
Therefore, Zhang Qigong suggested that Yong Wang Hongyu bring down the East Palace as soon as possible to avoid long nights and dreams.
So on the morning of June 17, Zhao Hongli, the prince of the East Palace, became the target of public criticism.
At the early court meeting on this day, several people who were rarely seen in court meetings came to the court, including Yong Wang Hongyu, Xiang Wang Hongjing, Qing Wang Hongxin, and Su Wang Hongrun.
Especially the arrival of King Su Zhao Hongrun surprised all the courtiers attending the morning court.
You must know that although His Highness King Su has the honor of participating in court affairs, he never visits the Xuanzheng Hall unless summoned by the Emperor of Wei. It is hard to imagine that His Highness would appear here.
Not to mention other people, even Emperor Wei who attended the morning court was stunned for a moment after seeing Zhao Hongrun.
You must know that from the 16th year of Hongde to this year, in a total of four years, Zhao Hongrun never appeared in the morning court more than once.
But today, this scoundrel actually appeared in the morning, which means that something big is going to happen today.
"Oh."
Glancing at the position of King Yong Hongyu who was kneeling in the Xuanzheng Hall, Emperor Wei's eyes flashed with an unpredictable look, and then he said in a deep voice: "I love you, please be safe."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." All the courtiers and princes stood up to express their gratitude.
After looking around, for some unknown reason, Emperor Wei seemed to have not seen Zhao Hongrun, and asked calmly as usual: "What do you want to say today, dear friends?"
As I have said before, in fact, the morning court is a routine matter. It is for the various ministries and departments of the imperial court to report to the Emperor Wei what they have done recently, so that the Emperor Wei knows that these ministers are not lazy. It is not a simple meal. In fact, it is a real taboo event.
, For example, where there is a flood, where there is a drought, etc., the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of Rites have already dealt with such matters on their own. It is impossible to wait for the morning report to Emperor Wei before making any final conclusions. Otherwise, wouldn’t the victims be affected by the disaster?
Want to starve to death more?
In addition, the most common thing in the early dynasty was that the ministers of the court and the central government were arguing with each other, or to put it more seriously, it was impeachment. Political opponents from different camps attacked each other, and the Yushitai, as the spokesman, criticized the entire six departments of the court, as if they were all powerful.
Just scolding these officials will make the officials in the Sixth and Twenty-Fourth Departments of the DPRK and Central Government become clean and honest.
Therefore, according to the usual process, the ministers of each ministry should be the first to speak, telling Emperor Wei that they have been working hard recently to share the country's worries, and then it was the turn of the Yushijian, the official of the Yushi, to come forward and tell the court.
Criticism of six volumes.
But today, when the discerning courtiers saw the four princes appearing in the morning court at the same time, they wisely lowered their heads and said nothing, because they knew that today's protagonists were not them.
Sure enough, after a moment of silence, the new Minister of Punishment, Tang Zheng, petitioned the Emperor of Wei to come out to impeach the "Northern First Army".
Tang Zheng, the Minister of Punishment, listed many examples. During the Northern Xinjiang campaign, the Yanbei First Army robbed civilians, massacred innocent people, lied about military merits, excluded colleagues, framed friendly troops, and took military merits from others.
Later, Tang Zheng presented many incriminating evidences.
It has to be said that it is not that Tang Zheng, the Minister of Punishment, has taken refuge in Yongwang Hongyu, it is just because these things are indeed confirmed by evidence.
Take the two points of ostracizing colleagues and framing friendly forces as an example. During the Battle of Northern Xinjiang, Cui Xie of the Yongwang Party and Liu Yi of the Xiangwang Party were miserably squeezed out by the Donggong Party, and they could not get any benefits.
However, when the Northern First Army encountered a fierce attack from the Korean Army, the Donggong Party united and forced Cui Xie and Liu Yi to lead troops into battle.
For this reason, Cui Xie and Liu Yi suffered countless defeats, which also caused them, who originally held more than 10,000 troops, to suffer heavy casualties among their subordinates.
In fact, the ministers in the DPRK and the Central Government are more or less aware of things like this. Even if they are not informed, they can guess it just by thinking about it.
After all, it was Zhao Hongli, the prince of the East Palace, who was in charge of the Northern First Army's coach at that time. If so, how could the East Palace Party not take the opportunity to deal with the Yongwang Party and the Xiangwang Party?
Subsequently, Qing Wang Hongxin also came forward to impeach the Northern First Army for its invading and occupying the "Northern Third Army".
You must know that the chief general of the three northern armies is Jiang Bi of the Tianshui Wei clan, and the Tianshui Wei clan and Nanliang King Zhao Yuanzuo have already raised their flags to support Zhao Hongxin, the fifth son of the emperor. Therefore, the northern first army invaded Jiang Bi
In a sense, his deeds also harmed the interests of King Qing Zhao Hongxin.
Although Jiang Bi did not want to offend the Northern First Army and its commander, Prince Zhao Hongli of the East Palace, who had a strong background, Prince Qing Zhao Hongxin was not afraid of offending the latter.
After Qing Wang Zhao Hongxin, Xiang Wang Zhao Hongjing and Su Wang Zhao Hongrun both came forward to impeach the Northern Army.
The King of Xiang, Zhao Hongjing, accused the Northern Army of guarding the First Army and blaming friendly forces for committing theft, while the King of Su, Zhao Hongrun, impeached the Northern Army of the First Army for indiscriminately killing innocent people in Korea, insulting the name of the army, and destroying the reputation of the Wei Army.
Even at the end, Zhao Hongrun said something that silenced the Xuanzheng Palace: "...How can such thugs and evil bandits be called soldiers of the Wei Dynasty? I am ashamed to be associated with them!"
To be honest, before Zhao Hongrun took charge of the army, the reputation of the Wei army was not much better. For example, the Dangshan army. The general of this army, Sima An, had no intention of assisting Zhao Hongrun in attacking the Jiejiao tribe in Sanchuan County.
Hesitantly massacred several Yi tribes that did not participate in the war between the two sides.
However, in the past few years when Zhao Hongrun was in charge of the army, His Royal Highness Prince Su had been committed to improving the positive image of the Wei army in the world, and strictly prohibited plundering civilians and massacring innocent people, so that in terms of military discipline in this regard, the Shangshui Army and the Yanling Army could be called
The most exemplary army.
The advantage of doing this is that when Zhao Hongrun later assisted Qi King Lu Xi in his crusade against Chu, he easily abducted more than a million Chu civilians from Chu, forcibly increasing Wei's national population by nearly 20%.
.
After this incident, the Ministry of War included "the prohibition of massacre of civilians of other countries" in military discipline regulations and issued it to the domestic army.
But unfortunately, the Northern Army did not take it seriously.
The entire morning of that day seemed to be filled with the voices of Yong Wang Hongyu, Xiang Wang Hongjing, Qing Wang Hongxin, Su Wang Hongrun and others jointly impeaching the Northern Army.
In fact, everyone in the Xuanzheng Hall knew very well that although these people were impeaching the scum of the Northern First Army and the Donggong Party, as long as these criminal evidences were confirmed, the person who would ultimately bear the responsibility would still be the Prince of the Donggong, Zhao Hongli.
Who told Prince Zhao Hongli of the East Palace not to discipline his subordinates well? This is the "royal servant"!
How can you govern a country if you can't even discipline the people under your command?
In the early morning of that day, Emperor Wei did not explicitly punish the Prince of the East Palace, but the incident spread throughout the whole country in just half a day.
The four princes jointly impeached the Northern Army and the East Palace. You can imagine what kind of storm this was.
You must know that these four princes are not temporarily unknown princes like Xi Wang Zhao Hongyin and Huan Wang Zhao Hongxuan. King Yong, King Xiang, and King Qing are all people with many reputations in Daliang, let alone Prince Su.
.
The forces from all four parties were twisted into one force, and even the nobles of the Donggong Party clenched their teeth and held on to the powerful public opinion, but they could not withstand it.
A few days later, the storm became more fierce. First, King Zhao Hongjiang of Yan, who was still stationed in Shanyang County, Hedong County, reported to the court, bluntly saying that the impeachment of the East Palace was incompetent. Then, "unknown members of the Northern First Army, Northern Second Army, and Northern Third Army"
"Informed Persons" exposed various ugly acts committed by the First Army of the North during the Northern Xinjiang Campaign.
Looting the property and surplus food of innocent Korean civilians in Hedong County, massacring local people wantonly, raping women, cutting off the heads of innocent Korean civilians and falsely claiming military merit. When this scandal spread in Daliang, the entire Wei people in Daliang were
Feel shocked.
Because I remember that in the earliest days, the Wang family and other aristocratic forces of the Donggong Party spared no effort to praise Donggong and praise Donggong’s wise decisions in northern Xinjiang. But now, many insiders have revealed that Quwo, Linfen, Xintian,
Shancheng, Tangxian and other places were not lost territory recovered by the East Palace or the First Army of the North at all. They were captured by General Jiang Bi, the commander of the Third Army of the North. It was the East Palace and the First Army of the North that shamelessly robbed the Third Army of the North of their achievements.
As for repelling the Qin army that invaded the western part of Hedong Army, it was because Donggong and Beiyi Army were shameless and boasted: The reason why the Qin army retreated was because Qin had an army of 200,000 in Hangu, Sanchuan County.
, was defeated by the army led by Su Wang Zhao Hongrun, and the entire army was wiped out.
These kinds of comments swept the entire Daliang, and the soldiers and civilians in Daliang finally understood the contribution made by the Northern Army in Northern Xinjiang: that is, there was no contribution!
In fact, instead of making no contribution, the Northern Army also killed innocent people indiscriminately and committed many evil deeds, which greatly damaged the image of the Wei people.
For a time, the Donggong Party, which was at its peak some time ago, seemed to have suddenly become a street rat and the target of shameless reviling by the people of Daliang.
After learning about this incident, Prince Zhao Hongli of the Eastern Palace locked himself in his room and drank alcohol every day to relieve his boredom. The overwhelming negative public opinion in Daliang made him realize that he was finished this time, completely finished.
Seeing the lonely look of Prince Zhao Hongli, Prince Huan Zhao Hongxuan, who came to persuade him, felt very angry.
"My brother...how can he side with King Yong?!"
Zhao Hongxuan lowered his desk angrily. He knew that if his brother Su Wang Zhao Hongrun hadn't come forward this time, which greatly increased the momentum of King Yong's side, the Prince of the East Palace might still have some room for maneuver.
"I said, you shouldn't drag King Huan into the water..." Next to him, Zhou Min looked at Luo Yao with a half-smile.
Luo Yao remained silent. He had a good idea. As long as Su Wang Zhao Hongrun saw that Prince Zhao Hongli handed over the Northern First Army to Huan Wang Zhao Hongxuan without reservation, Su Wang would see the "sincerity" here.
I won't say much.
But after the Beiyi Military Camp Incident happened, before he could let King Su see the "sincerity of the East Palace", King Su had already sided with King Yong, kicked the East Palace hard, and
He kicked down the abyss.
Taking a deep breath, Luo Yao said seriously to Prince Zhao Hongli: "Your Highness, there is still a chance..."
"..." Prince Zhao Hongli looked at Luo Yao blankly, while King Huan Zhao Hongxuan also asked with a bit of surprise: "What do you think Mr. Luo has to say?"
"'Book of Sin'!" Luo Yao said sternly: "In fact, the behavior of the Northern Army was not authorized by His Highness the Crown Prince. Many people can see this. It's just that King Yong is now so powerful that many people use it.
I will judge you, the Crown Prince, with a biased eye... Therefore, I would like to suggest that you take all the blame and resign yourself as the commander of the First Army of the North, and..." He glanced at Prince Zhao Hongli and then whispered: "
And...the honor of being the Prince of the East Palace."
"You...you let me petition my father to save myself from the position in the East Palace?" Prince Zhao Hongli looked at Luo Yao in disbelief.
You know, he has been the prince for more than ten or twenty years. If he loses this title, what will he have left?
As if he had read through the thoughts of Prince Zhao Hongli, Luo Yao gritted his teeth and insisted: "This is the best way at the moment. If His Highness the Crown Prince is willing to listen to my suggestions, there may be a chance to make a comeback in the future... You have to know
, except that King Su attacked you because of personal grudges, the other three, King Yong, King Xiang, and King Qing, all joined forces to deal with you because you blocked their way, that is, the position of "Prince". But if you
If you are no longer the crown prince, can they still unite? No, they will attack each other. In this case, no one will care about your affairs anymore... In this way, your highness, your prince, will only lose one person.
The title of 'Prince' will not damage our power..."
The Prince of the East Palace, Zhao Hongli, was thoughtful, then turned to look at Zhou Min.
Zhou Min pondered for a moment, and after taking a deep look at Luo Yao, he nodded slowly: "Luo Yao's move is quite clever."
"What about the Northern First Army? I said that I would hand it over to Hongxuan..." Prince Zhao Hongli said again.
Luo Yao heard this and said seriously: "This is a good opportunity for His Royal Highness King Huan to rectify the First Army of the North in a drastic manner!"
"Then... let's do it!" Prince Zhao Hongli thought for a while and nodded solemnly.
On that day, news spread in the Daliang court that the Prince of the East Palace felt guilty for not being strict with his subordinates, which caused the Northern Army to commit all kinds of scandals. In order to punish himself, he petitioned the Chui Gong Palace to avoid the title of "Prince of the East Palace".