Chapter 131 Emperor Qing wants to change the whetstone! Yuan Menger files a complaint with the emperor! (13)

The second son of the Cui family and more than a dozen smuggling shop owners all left complete confessions under the control of the local Luowang and signed their names.

The members of the Luowang did not reveal their identities and took away all the signed confessions for evidence.

They have already confessed and revealed the secrets of the two important men. Being killed to silence them is the lightest punishment. It is also possible that their entire family will be murdered in revenge and wiped out.

Therefore, if they cannot overthrow Li Chengze and Li Yunrui, they will have no way out.

Except for the second master Cui, Luo Wang had promised to protect the families of other shopkeepers, so these people went to report as planned.

As for the second son of the Cui family, he knew in his heart that the Cui family was doomed.

He must actively cooperate with the investigation, and he may have a chance to survive.

For these people, turning themselves in, reporting and exposing the crimes can also reduce their criminal responsibility.

In Kyoto, the news of smuggling in the inner treasury caused a huge uproar, and the whole city was in an uproar.

All the Yishizu restaurants in the capital closed at the same time on this day.

Yishiju was the property of the Cui family, and it was the Cui family who actually carried out the smuggling with Northern Qi.

Angry citizens took to the streets and threw stones at the facade of Yishiju.

"I never thought that the Cui family is the biggest borer in Daqing!"

"The soldiers on the front line are fighting for their lives with Northern Qi, but these bigwigs are smuggling behind the scenes!"

"The Cui family deserves to die! And the eldest princess and the second prince are secretly colluding with the enemy country, harming the public and enriching themselves. They are absolutely unscrupulous!"

The busiest teahouse in Kyoto is now in chaos, with everyone discussing the smuggling in the inner treasury.

"There have been reports from several government offices, all of them accusing the Second Prince and the Eldest Princess!"

"Several million taels of silver every year, enough to destroy Northern Qi many times!"

"Yuan Meng, who filed a complaint with Si Lili five years ago, is filing a complaint again!"

"In order to fight with Fan Xian's faction, the Second Prince actually encouraged others to open a brothel and force women into prostitution! It almost resulted in a death!"

……

East Palace.

When the prince heard the news, he couldn't help but smile with joy.

"The second one is over!"

"Mr. Cui, please go and turn yourself in to Lai Mingcheng. He is a tough guy and will definitely get to the bottom of this!"

"The Inspection Office, the Supervisory Office, the Ministry of Justice, and the Dali Temple all received reports of this incident at the same time. This matter cannot be suppressed at all!"

The reason why the prince was so confident was that he had people holding important positions in the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court.

By this calculation, the Inspectorate, the Ministry of Justice, and the Dali Temple will all investigate this thoroughly.

"Second brother, you are completely screwed this time!"

"Father shouldn't do anything to my aunt, but I'm afraid Li Chengze will never be able to turn things around again!"

Inspection Institute.

After hearing what Yingzi said, Chen Pingping fell into deep thought.

"Shadow, how many Shadow Guards does Li Changan have now?"

Shadow replied, "Hulong Villa has been built, and His Royal Highness Prince Yong will move there soon."

"There are currently 100 Shadow Guards in Prince Yong's Mansion, and around 200 Shadow Guards in Hulong Villa."

Chen Pingping said, "There are three hundred masters above the seventh rank, and there are about a hundred masters at the eighth rank."

"There are also the secret agents that His Majesty allowed him to place in the underworld. There are probably more than a thousand of them in total."

Shadow said, "It should be about the same. His Royal Highness Prince Yong always recruits martial arts masters every time he goes out."

Chen Pingping tapped the wheelchair and said, "This time, the incident against the Second Prince was the work of Li Changan."

"The Crown Prince currently does not have such a powerful force in his hands. The Princess does have it, but she will not ask anyone to sue her."

"Your Highness Prince Yong, you are becoming more and more aggressive!"

Shadow said in a deep voice, "So many people have reported the prince, causing the royal family's scandal to become a hot topic. I'm afraid this has touched your Majesty's reverse scale."

Chen Pingping smiled and said, "Didn't you notice that Prince Yong's actions are obviously testing your Majesty's bottom line?"

"If I'm not mistaken, he wants to completely overthrow Li Chengze and then stand on the stage of competing for the throne himself."

"This Prince Yong thinks he is much better than his two nephews and has become interested in your Majesty's throne!"

Shadow continued, "But Prince Yong is not a prince after all, and he is going to marry a princess from Northern Qi as his concubine. If he wants to covet the throne, I'm afraid it's unlikely!"

Chen Pingping sneered and said, "But he has strength, and his strength in all aspects is slowly showing."

"If this matter continues, one of Prince Yong and the Second Prince must fall completely."

"If you were His Majesty, who would you let fall?"

Shadow said without hesitation, "Of course it's the Second Prince. The cost of bringing Prince Yong down is too high."

Compared with Li Changan's reputation and status, the second prince currently has no outstanding features except that he is the biological son of Emperor Qing.

Chen Pingping turned around and glanced at Shadow. "Yes, if you, an outsider, can understand it, how can His Majesty not understand it?"

"In the eyes of our Majesty, the Crown Prince must never fall.

The other competitor, whether he is the Second Prince or Prince Yong, is nothing more than a grinding stone. "

"The stronger Prince Yong becomes, the greater his power will be. Wouldn't that just balance out the power of the Crown Prince and the Princess?"

Shadow still had some doubts when he asked, "But if we let Prince Yong become powerful, what if the situation develops beyond your majesty's control?"

Chen Pingping smiled calmly and said, "No, His Majesty is confident that the affairs of Qing Kingdom cannot escape his control!"

Royal study room.

In this world, only in front of Hong Sixiang can Emperor Qing reveal some of his true feelings.

"Si Xiang, I have never thought of changing the crown prince from the beginning to the end. Li Chengze is just a whetstone for sharpening the crown prince's knife."

"Back then, he was obsessed with poetry and literature, and I nurtured him step by step, making him strong enough to compete with the Crown Prince for so many years."

"This incident against Li Chengze is Li Changan showing me his strength and ability."

"He is telling me that he is already much stronger than Li Chengze, and he is no longer satisfied with being an idle prince!"

Hong Sixiang bowed and said, "Prince Yong's three hundred shadow guards, including secret agents in the martial arts world, and the prestige of the Heavenly Vein Master, were also given to him step by step by His Majesty."

"Whether it's Li Changan or Li Chengze, with just one word from your majesty, they can go from being a prince above everyone else to a prisoner at the mercy of others."

Emperor Qing carefully studied the composite bow blueprint that Fan Xian had sent him, and said nonchalantly, "That's not entirely true. Li Changan's literary talent was not given by me. It was a gift from God."

"He knows that he has an irreplaceable position in the literary world, so even though he is just my younger brother, he dares to jump out and compete for the position of crown prince!"

Emperor Qing tacitly allowed Li Changan's Shadow Secret Guard to grow in power, with the intention of checking the Inspection Institute. He and his old partner Chen Pingping had their own agenda. Moreover, Li Changan's influence and power in all aspects just happened to form a new balance with the combination of the eldest princess and the crown prince.

Now Li Chengze has almost no ability to fight back against Li Changan.

The value of the whetstone has almost disappeared, it's time to change it.

A prince who has little hope of inheriting the throne but is extraordinarily powerful is simply the best whetstone.

If the strength is too strong but the hope of succession is equally great, then the prince will be afraid and lose confidence.

If he is not strong, his hope of succession is slim, and the prince has no sense of crisis.

Choosing a whetstone is also a science.

Hong Sixiang whispered, "Your Majesty, I always feel that His Royal Highness Prince Yong has a mysterious self-confidence."

"That kind of confidence comes from the heart. He has no scruples. Maybe he has something to rely on that we don't know about."

Hearing what Hong Sixiang said, Emperor Qing suddenly laughed, "You worry too much. Can his reliance compare to my reliance?"

What he meant was that I am a grandmaster, so I can change the whetstone without any worries of ruining the situation.

Even if Li Changan has someone to rely on, can he still have a grandmaster by his side?
"But it's always better to be cautious. You should still inspect Hulong Villa and Yongwang Mansion regularly."

"I will make him move out of Kyoto City immediately and live in Hulong Villa outside the city. This will be a punishment for him!"

Hong Sixiang accepted the order and said, "I obey your order."

A few days later, Li Changan completed the relocation, and his family and secret guards all moved to the Hulong Villa outside the city.

Many people were interpreting this incident, saying that Li Changan had been too jumpy recently and this was just a small punishment given to him by Emperor Qing.

After all, for a prince, not living in Kyoto means being out of touch with the news.

However, for Grand Master Li Changan, with Luowang and Shadow Guards around, this distance is nothing.

Living outside the city, away from the eyes and ears of various forces, actually gave Li Changan a lot more freedom in his movements.

Moving out of Kyoto City might be a punishment for other princes, but for Li Changan, it was a great thing!

Li Changan's Yi Jin Jing has now reached perfection, with only the seventh week of Black Level Buddha left to practice.

After completing the first six levels of pagoda, one has already reached the strength of other human grand masters.

Li Changan's injuries have now fully recovered, and he is also practicing the Black Level Pagoda.

Ordinary warriors can only store Qi in their meridians. Those who practice White-level pagoda can store Qi in their acupoints. By continuing to practice the initial stage of Black-level pagoda, they can store Qi throughout their body.

Because unlike Emperor Qing, whose meridians were not completely destroyed, after Li Changan reached the state of storing true energy throughout his body, he had more true energy than Emperor Qing.

Therefore, as long as Li Changan can cultivate the initial stage of the black-level pagoda, he will be able to crush Emperor Qing and the blindfolded Wuzhu in terms of combat power!

In other words, as long as you refine the initial stage of the black-level pagoda, you can be invincible in the world!
If you want to compete with Wuzhu Cyclops without his eyepatch, you will need to reach the intermediate or perfect stage of the Black Level Pagoda.

The action against Li Chengze has been going on for several days. Li Changan listened to Jingwei's report on the situation, while Wang Qinian, Xing Yusen and Teng Zijing were on standby.

"Your Highness, the Inspection Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Dali Temple, and the Supervisory Office have all accepted the case and have written to Emperor Qing to explain the situation."

"However, Emperor Qing did not issue any clear orders in response to their petitions."

Li Changan was not surprised by Emperor Qing's attitude. "Not giving an order means not opposing the continuation of the trial. How is the progress now?"

Jingwei continued, "The progress is very smooth. The accounts in the hands of the shopkeepers of each store are very detailed."

"The various government offices also checked the Jinyiwei's intelligence with the Inspection Bureau, and basically all of them were ironclad evidence."

All the intelligence about smuggling from the Jinyiwei in the hands of the Shadow Secret Guard has been copied to the Inspection Institute.

"Moreover, the chief officials of the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple are all disciples of the crown prince, so the trial of the case went very smoothly."

"As for the second son of the Cui family, he has been placed under special protection by the Inspectorate. Lai Mingcheng has already obtained irrefutable evidence of the Cui family's smuggling."

Now it seems that everything is going according to plan. "Old Prince, has the Second Prince taken action against these plaintiffs?"

Wang Qinian said, "According to Fan Wujiu's information, there shouldn't be any at the moment."

"Because the Crown Prince is in the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple, it is almost impossible to silence him."

"Moreover, the Inspection Bureau has already planted a large number of hidden agents near various government offices, waiting for Li Chengze to send someone to silence them."

Li Changan chuckled and said, "Fan Xian is at odds with Li Chengze. We will never give him a chance to turn the tables."

Jingwei then talked about the news about Fan Xian, "Because the investigation of Li Chengze by various government offices was tacitly approved by Emperor Qing, Fan Xian also launched an investigation into the corrupt officials under Li Chengze."

There are many corrupt officials under Li Chengze. In the original drama, Chen Pingping was worried that the case would involve too many people, so he set up a plan with Fan Xian and used Lai Mingcheng's integrity to push the task of investigating these corrupt officials to the Inspectorate.

But now that Li Chengze is in trouble, Chen Pingping and Fan Xian will naturally give him a beating.

Li Changan asked again, "By the way, I have secretly ordered Fan Wujiu to investigate the remaining personnel and goods in Shijia Town. Has he found their hiding place?"

Wang Qinian replied, "We have already found out. Your Highness, would you like to arrange for someone to go and collect the evidence?"

Li Changan shook his head. "No, everyone will push the wall down. We just need to make a start."

"You can secretly leak the clues to the Inspection Bureau and the Crown Prince at the same time, and let them grab it themselves."

"How is Yuan Meng? The three judicial organs will not hastily conclude the case this time, right?"

Wang Qinian replied, "This time there is a smuggling case, and Lai Mingcheng takes Yuan Meng's report very seriously."

"There are more than a dozen girls who were forced to bear witness to the incident. There are also evidences and witnesses. Fan Sizhe and Li Chengping were also called in for questioning."

Li Changan couldn't help but sigh, "Lai Mingcheng is really not afraid of death. I don't want him to die."

In the original drama, Lai Mingcheng reported Fan Xian, Li Chengze, the Inspection Institute, and finally Emperor Qing because of the Baoyue Tower incident.

In the end, Emperor Qing beat Lai Mingcheng to death in court.

Of course, the main reason is that Lai Mingcheng and Fan Xian, the lone minister named by Emperor Qing, had a personal relationship.

But this time Lai Mingcheng personally investigated Li Chengze. If he also reported it to the Inspection Institute and His Majesty, he would probably end up with a tragic death.

Li Changan could imagine that Lai Mingcheng would definitely say that Emperor Qing condoned the Second Prince's fight for the throne, which led to smuggling in the inner treasury.

Maybe he will even say that Your Majesty is the main culprit in the smuggling case in the inner treasury!
Although what Lai Mingcheng said was true, he was also walking on the edge of Emperor Qing's tolerance.

"Teng Zijing, among the officials recommended by Lai Mingcheng in recent years, are there any involved in smuggling or corruption?"

Teng Zijing replied, "Yes, two of them happen to be the Second Prince's disciples, and they should have been investigated."

Li Changan said to Jingwei, "Take the token and go find Lin Ruofu. Prepare a memorial to criticize Lai Mingcheng. The more serious the better."

"If the old Lai is still stubborn, report him at the critical moment!"

Li Changan brought down Li Chengze in order to save him from the tragic fate of being a grindstone.

Li Changan participated in the uprooting of Lai Mingcheng in order to save him from the tragic fate of being beaten to death.

"Everyone, although I scheme against others all day long, it is all for their own good. It is really not easy for me."

Jingwei, Wang Qinian and the others all said in unison, "Your Highness is merciful!"

(End of this chapter)