When Tang Zong saw these two people, he held back the anger in his heart, and said in shock: "This official has not summoned you two to come!"

"Li Zhen's case, it was the two of us who discovered his adultery, so they impeached him," Yuan Gang seemed to be very confident, and he didn't mean to be afraid at all: "Today, the three divisions will be tried, and the six departments and nine secretaries are all here, I don't know why the presiding judge didn't summon me to the court to confront him in accordance with the law?"

In fact, he was right, if Li Zhen's wife Wang was the plaintiff in this case, her original intention should be to rescue her husband in the prison of the Criminal Department, but it is not so simple - since Wang wants to rescue her husband, she must first prove her husband's innocence, and since Li Zhen is innocent, then Yuan Gang and Qin Heng, the imperial historians who impeached Li Zhen in the first place, are suspected of making false accusations for personal gain. Therefore, according to the law, Tang Zong should summon Yuan Gang and Qin Heng to confront them, but Tang Zong did not summon them, because he wanted to get favorable evidence from Li Zhen and Sooli first, and then in the face of Yuan Gang and Qin Heng, he could catch them off guard.

"What three divisions will be interrogated!" Tang Zong said: "You are already involved in the procuratorate and the criminal department, so you should avoid suspicion and wait for the official to interrogate!"

"My lord's words are funny," Qin Heng said: "Your Excellency is also a person who has been in prison for a long time, how can you see that in a case, only the plaintiff is divided, and there is no trace of the defendant, but there is such a precedent? Could it be that the Lord only allows them to sue for injustice, but does not allow us two defendants to defend themselves?"

Tang Zong's heart was a little empty, he was afraid that his selfishness would be seen by others, after all, among the people sitting here, which one of them was not a human spirit who was up and down in the sea of eunuchs?

"Okay, good, Lord Chen's subordinates, it is reasonable to say that they are unreasonable, and this official can be regarded as knowledgeable. Tang Zongyi waved his hand and said: "Since you are uninvited, this official has also prepared for you-you will talk about your reasoning to the ministers, the princes, and the princes!"

"First of all, my lord," Yuan Gang said, "Li Zhen, the head of the military department, does he admit that he was bribed by four people, including Ye Zhuan and Wang Wei?"

"He flatly denied it," Tang Zong sneered, "The official was about to order someone to go to his house to verify." Since the two of you impeached him last time, your words should be conclusive, and there should be solid evidence. However, when the official read the transcript of the two of you, he found that there was not a single word in the thousand and thirteen characters that mentioned what bribes he had received, whether it was treasure money or silver, calligraphy and painting, or treasures. ”

Qin Heng sneered and said, "My lord, if you ask him, he will definitely be aggrieved, to tell the truth, if he changes anyone, I am afraid that he will also be aggrieved, because he doesn't know that he has been bribed!"

This time it was as if a cannon battle fell in the crowd, everyone was surprised, and Lu Zhen, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, said: "Is it Liu Ning's case again?"

There was a slight noise in the lobby for a while, but Fu Yin Xue Jun patted the hall in shock: "Silence - Yuan Gang, Qin Heng, you two will go through the details and talk about it in detail." ”

Yuan Gang coughed lightly, looked at Li Zhen and said, "Director Li, is the Duanxi inkstone on your public case still easy to use?"

Li Zhen was dazed for a moment before he said, "It's easy to use, what does Lord Yuan mean?"

"Then please ask Director Li to tell everyone the origin of this inkstone. Yuan Gang said.

Li Zhen said: "My original inkstone was broken by me, and I was going to buy a new one, and I did buy a new one." It's just that it's still not very easy to use, Ye Zhuan saw it, and said that his hometown of Zhaoqing is the place where Duan inkstone is produced, and he has a Duan inkstone there, the price is low, but the quality is good, and he said that he is going back to his hometown to visit relatives - his old lady is sick, and he can bring me back by the way. ”

There are almost no family visits for officials now, not to mention soap li, but there are still people who are affectionate, if the father and mother in the hometown are sick and ask for leave, the boss is allowed and tolerant - so Ye Zhuan and his wife are sick, and Ye Zhuan's home visit leave will be approved by Li Zhen. And Ye Zhuan may be out of gratitude, so he said that his hometown is the production place of Duan Yan, and he can bring Li Zhen back.

"Lord Haojiao knows," Li Zhen said weakly: "The minister doesn't dare and don't have the money to make Zhao Ye turn into a minister to bring a famous inkstone, and before leaving, he specially instructed him, the price is between two and five runs, which is what the minister can afford." If he doesn't listen to the ministers and buys the expensive ones, the ministers can't take them. ”

"But you don't know," Qin Heng said: "The inkstone he brought back to you is actually of good quality, you can ask him, how much is that inkstone worth?"

Li Zhen's eyes widened, and he said to Ye Zhuan, who lowered his head and was silent: "Ye Zhuan, didn't you tell me at the time that things are not good, and they are only worth two yuan?" In fact, after he asked, he felt bad in his heart - because when he used this inkstone brought by Ye Zhuan, he felt that it was very easy to use, but he only felt that this inkstone was thin but not slippery, astringent but not coarse, and there was no sound at all when grinding ink, but since Ye Zhuan said that this thing was not in good condition and flawed, he also believed it, otherwise why would Ye Zhuan lie to him?

Ye Zhuan refused to speak, so Tang Zong shouted loudly, threatening him to be tortured, and sure enough, Ye Zhuan was so frightened that he said: "I move, I move-"

It turned out that Ye Zhuanzu lived in Zhaoqing in the sixth generation, although he was still the first one, but since the Southern Song Dynasty, he has collected a lot of good Duanyan, because his home is not far from Duanxi, which is too close to Laokeng. Therefore, the inkstone he brought to Li Zhen was not bought anywhere in Zhaoqing, but a good inkstone from his own house.

Soon the inkstone on Li Zhen's table was brought to the lobby, and all the people sitting there were Wenchen, who naturally had a little common sense to identify the quality of the inkstone, among which Lu Zhen, the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, was the most proficient. He took the inkstone in his hand and looked at it for a while, and said: "The market price of this inkstone is about 100 yuan, which is considered to be an upper-medium thing." ”

Master Lu pointed to a few stone eyes on the inkstone, and said: "There are three stone eyes, and the halo is overlapping, this is where this thing is valuable, but the color is slightly worse, and the gathering place is too close, so it has lost some." "Stone eye is a kind of precious pattern that naturally grows on the inkstone and has the same precious pattern as the eyes of birds and beasts. It may be emerald green, yellow-green, beige, yellowish-white or pink-green, with different sizes and expressions. According to the quality of the pattern, the black eyes, blue halo, dansha, ivory color, the circle is the robin, the long is the shape of a bird and a crow, or the lonely mark and double shadow, or the three or five and the horizontal oblique is a precious good thing, and the final judgment is that this thing should be like the human eye, the brilliance is the best.

So it is almost certain that Ye Zhuan gave him an expensive Duan Yan without Li Zhen's knowledge or being deceived, and Li Zhen thought it was something worth two times, so he accepted it. Although he paid the money, there was still a convicted crime.

In fact, such cases are not uncommon, and there was even a case in the Hongwu period, there was a high-ranking official who liked to drink, and his subordinates often sent him wine to drink, but they all gave him bad wine that was so cheap that the peddlers and pawns could afford to drink, but they won many good reputations. However, in the end, I learned that these subordinates were all in such inferior bottles, filled with Liquan wine. But the high-ranking official didn't know it himself, and thought that the bad wine was in line with his heart, until one day he drank the real bad wine on the street.

So just not knowing it can exonerate you from the sin of having drunk so much good wine? You don't know it, but you take it and you eat it—that's the crime.

Therefore, the impeachment of Yuan Gang and Qin Heng is not wrong.

Tang Zong had a little sweat stain on his forehead, he couldn't ask Yuan Gang and Qin Heng how they knew in such detail, so he could only ask Ye Zhuandao: "Why did you give him a famous inkstone, is it just that he gave you leave to visit your relatives? What else does it have to do with you and Li Zhen, and you haven't recruited it from the truth!"