The next morning, Emperor Li Shi summoned Li Mi again. This time, Li Shi was not as irritable as last night. The fundamental reason was that An Tinggui confirmed the emperor's doubts last night and his uncle Anping happened to transport a batch of wine from Zhangye.
Come to Beijing.
Anping testified to the emperor that there was no royal palace built in the north of Zhangye City. There were large areas of private houses in the north of Zhangye City and there was no place for large-scale construction. Anping then told Li Shi that the conflict between Guo Song and Tian Wenxiu was known to everyone in Zhangye City. The reason was that Tian Wenxiu humiliated Ganzhou.
Governor Shi Pan Liao bound him and knelt down for interrogation without any evidence, which aroused Guo Song's anger.
As for the Luo family mentioned in the report, Anping told Li Shi that Luo Yu's son confessed in court and admitted to providing information on Zhangye city defense to the Shatuo people. The Luo family and his son were publicly executed, and the Luo family property was confiscated by the military.
Li Shi finally asked Guo Song about his wife's pregnancy, and Anping confirmed that it was true. His wife had also visited Xue, and she was probably six months pregnant.
A series of proofs finally made Li Shi begin to doubt the authenticity of Tian Wenxiu's report. However, Anping could not prove whether Guo Song had the ambition to support military separatism. It is impossible for the An family to guarantee Guo Song for such a thing.
If Guo Song really rebels, the An family will be implicated.
Therefore, on this key issue, Anping said that he was not in the military or government and did not understand the situation.
Li Mi breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he entered the imperial study. The emperor was no longer as irritable as last night. Instead, he stood in front of the map of Hexi with his hands folded and stared at it for a long time. More importantly, Lu Qi was not there either. As long as he did not add fuel to the fire,
Things will be easier now.
"No matter what, I decided to transfer Guo Song away from Hexi!"
Li Shi turned around and said to Li Bi calmly: "Tian Wenxiu may be exaggerating, but I trust him. He will not say that Guo Song is going to rebel without reason. He must have seen something and heard something. I believe in the supervisory troops I sent."
.”
Li Mi did not take up the topic and continued to listen to what Li Shi said.
Li Shi looked at the map of Hexi on the wall and said: "At the beginning, the situation in Ganzhou was critical. In order to let him take control of the Ganzhou Army as soon as possible, I agreed that he would bring 20 trusted generals. Now these generals control 20,000 Ganzhou Army.
, the Ganzhou Army has actually become Guo Song's private army. This is the fundamental reason why I believe that Guo Song will support his troops and separatist rule. If it were me, I would also think that Hexi is my territory and will never give up, let alone
Give up the army."
Only then did Li Mi finally know that the reason why the emperor suddenly suspected Guo Song was supporting the separatist regime was because he had agreed to a condition that he shouldn't have agreed to. This incident was like a poisonous thorn in the emperor's heart. Last year's nursery rhyme incident
After activating this poisonous stinger, sooner or later he will take action on Guo Song.
Li Mi was silent for a while and said: "Your Majesty has decided to transfer Guo Song away from Hexi. I fully support it, but please consider the timing of the transfer."
As His Majesty said, Guo Song will not give up Hexi easily, nor will he give up the Ganzhou Army that he firmly controls. If pressed, he may really seize the country with his troops. At least now, Wei Chen feels that the time is not yet ripe. Hebei
The war with the Central Plains breaks out. At this time, we should try our best to ensure the stability of the rear, rather than intensify it and force Guo and Song to rebel."
Li Shi agreed with Li Mi's advice. Hexi must not be in chaos at this time. He pondered for a moment and asked: "Then when do you think it is appropriate to transfer him away?"
"Weichen believes that at least until the war in the Central Plains and Hebei subsides, so that we have the energy to go back and deal with the possible rebellion in Hexi, we can then transfer Guo and Song to Beijing."
Li Shi walked to the window with his hands behind his back. He stared at the white clouds in the distance and said slowly: "My father told me before he died that Guo Song is a sharp sword. If you use it well, you will kill the enemy. If you use it poorly,
It will hurt myself. Once he enters Beijing, I decided to get rid of him to avoid future troubles."
After Li Shi finished speaking, he looked at Li Mi sharply, "Does the Prime Minister object?"
Li Mi knew that Li Shi had murderous intentions in his heart, he sighed in his heart, lowered his head and said: "I have no objection, but I just hope that your majesty will be cautious!"
...........
At night, a man in black wearing a bamboo hat entered Yuan Mansion.
She went directly to the back house and took off the bamboo hat, revealing Li Man's pale and stern face. There was no emotion in his cold eyes. If there was emotion, it was only a lust for power.
"The head of the family is looking for me?" Li Man sat down opposite Yuan Xuanhu.
Yuan Xuanhu asked with a smile: "I heard that you have been tracking Zhang Lei's exchange of gold and silver recently?"
"It's not Zhang Lei. He is just a figure on the surface. In fact, it is Guo Song who is exchanging gold and silver. I have not found clear data, but it will not be less than 300,000 gold. Head of the family, he is going to rebel."
"Maybe he wants to rebel, but maybe he is raising military expenses. The court only gives him half of his military salary, and he has to find his own way for the other half."
"I don't care what he does in exchange for gold and silver, but I want to catch Zhang Lei and find this gold and silver."
"Did you find it?"
Li Man shook his head, "After more than ten days of investigation, there are no clues."
Yuan Xuanhu smiled lightly and said: "You don't need to check anymore. He is no longer in Guanzhong. The Dugu family helped him transport the gold and silver."
Li Man was stunned, "When did this happen?"
"You don't need to know this. I have my own channels. Various relationships among Guanlong nobles are intertwined. Sometimes they are enemies, but sometimes they are relatives. You have me, and I have you, so I want to do something.
It's hard to hide it from other families. Just like Du Lingqiu knows that I am dealing with Guo Song, I also know that he is secretly helping Guo Song. This is nothing. He will not interfere with me, and I will not expose him. It has been like this for so many years.
Came here."
"Why did the owner of the family come to see me?"
"I do have two things to ask you for help with. The first is about Zhu Si. How is your surveillance on him in the Hidden Sword Pavilion?"
Li Man sneered and said: "Zhu Si is truly ambitious. He has replaced all the generals in Jingyuan Jiedu Mansion with his confidants. Everyone above the rank of captain is his. It can be said that the Jingyuan Army has become his."
Zhu Jiajun, we also found that he has stored a large amount of soldiers and armor and can form an army of tens of thousands at any time. Compared to Guo and Song, he is the real ambition and has obvious signs of rebellion. I have written the report but have not yet submitted it to
Son of Heaven."
Yuan Xuanhu was silent for a moment and said: "The Yuan family has invested at least 500,000 yuan on Zhu Si. I hope you can keep Zhu Si and don't submit the report to the emperor."
Li Man said slowly: "Master, please forgive me for being blunt. Zhu Si is ambitious. Once he rebels, he will most likely implicate the Yuan family. This is no joke."
"I know this matter well. As long as you keep Zhu Si, all adverse reports about him will be suppressed."
"I understand, what else is there?"
"The second thing is to ask you to assassinate someone, Zhang Yi, the governor of Longyou and Fengxiang."
Li Man looked at Yuan Xuanhu with a puzzled face, "Master, can you tell me why you want to kill Zhang Yi and what exactly are you going to do?"
"I will tell you later, but not now, this matter is very important."
Li Man shook his head, "I have my own principles in doing things. I will never kill someone in a haphazard way, especially for an important minister like Zhang Yi. If the head of the family doesn't tell me, then please find someone else."
Yuan Xuanhu had no choice but to say to Li Man: "Zhu Si and his brother Zhu Tao had secret contacts. They used Fengxiang Soldiers and Horses Li Chulin as an intermediary. Unexpectedly, this matter was discovered by Zhang Yi. Zhang Yi sent someone to report to the emperor.
He was intercepted and killed by us on the way, but if there is no movement from the emperor within three days, it is estimated that Zhang Yi will come to Beijing in person. In order to prevent the news from leaking, Zhang Yi must be eliminated."
Li Man finally understood. She nodded, "If I guessed correctly, the Yuan family wants to participate in the rebellion, or in other words, the Yuan family wants to restore the country, I am right!"
"It doesn't matter whether we can restore the country or not. What matters is the interests. The Yuan family has already invested 500,000 yuan. I don't want to lose everything in the end."
Li Man sneered in his heart, Yuan Xuanhu still didn't mean what he said.
But she nodded, "No problem, I'm responsible for assassinating Zhang Yi, but what about Guo Song?"
"The emperor already had the intention to kill Guo Song. Li Mi advised the emperor to wait for the opportunity. Although the emperor agreed, Lu Qi advised the emperor to create an opportunity, so it won't be too long. Even if he cannot be killed, he will be forced to rebel and his reputation will be ruined.
.”
Li Man shook his head, "I found that you did a lot of things, all under the pretext of killing Guo Song for revenge, but in fact you don't care at all whether Guo Song dies or not. You use Guo Song's rebellion to distract the attention of the Emperor and the Dugu family.
"Li, you actually have other intentions. Forget it, I don't care about Guo Song anymore. I promise to do the two things you asked. For the rest, I'm powerless."
Li Man stood up and left.
Yuan Xuanhu stood up tremblingly and took out a dragon-knuckle seal from a secret box. Under the light, the jade quality of the seal had turned yellow, but the words 'Seal of the Emperor of Wei' were still clearly visible. This was
The imperial seal of the Northern Wei Dynasty has been secretly kept by the Yuan family for two hundred years.
Yuan Xuanhu stared at Baoxi for a long time and sighed softly.