At the second watch of the next day, three figures sneakily appeared at the door of the lobby of the Criminal Department, it was Lu Wenyuan, Fu Qian, and Zhao Yongning. The three of them, all dressed in dark civilian clothes, first looked in the alley across the street, and only after making sure that there was no one around, did they flash out one by one. Zhao Yongning took out the key and opened the door, led the two to avoid all the guards, and found them all the way to the door of the prison of the Criminal Department.

The prison of the Criminal Department is guarded day and night. Zhao Yongning motioned for the two to hide in the dark first, and he stepped forward to talk to the jailer. Lu Wenyuan and Fu Qian saw him laughing with the jailer, and then stuffed something into the jailer's hand, presumably silver, and the jailer walked away. The three of them worked together in front of the cell door and walked towards the cell together.

Yan Yong is still in the original cell, but he has lost a lot of weight, almost like a skeleton, and there are many new whip marks on his body, it is estimated that he was intensified by Fan Zhefu, and the situation is very miserable.

The three of them squatted down outside the wooden fence and woke Yan Yong up, and Lu Wenyuan said, "Lord Yan, thanks to your reminder before, my crisis has been solved at this time. It's just that there are a lot of doubts about the disaster relief in Shanxi last time, so I came to ask for advice today. ”

Fu Qian said: "Half a month ago, I was ordered by Lord Lu to nominally go out to assess officials, but in fact I went to Shanxi for an unannounced visit. Fan Zhefu didn't report it, if it wasn't for Lord Lu sending me, I'm afraid we would still be kept in the dark and unaware. As he spoke, he took out the excerpts of several prefects from his arms, handed them to Yan Yong, and said: "This is the excerpt that several prefects around Taiyuan asked me to bring into Beijing. ”

Yan Yong took the fold and flipped through it, and sneered: "I expected it to be like this. I don't know who Fan Zhefu is, but I am afraid that the three million silver allocated for disaster relief in the court meeting ago has already been filled by him, and I thought of this when I was discussing in the court, so I obstructed him in every way. It's just ridiculous that the two of you, one of you pretends to be clever to help him speak, and the other knows it but only dares not say anything, to this point, it is difficult to say that there is no responsibility for you. After that, his eyes swept over Lu Wenyuan and Fu Qian like electricity, and the two of them were shocked, and they both lowered their heads.

After a while, Fu Qian raised his head and said: "Lord Lu has been a local official for a long time, and he doesn't know much about Fan Zhefu, so it is understandable to help him speak at that time. But I have always known that Fan Zhefu is a human being, and he has the same idea as Lord Yan, but he does not dare to openly confront him because he does not want to get involved in party struggle. Now that the people's livelihood is withering, I am deeply ashamed of the cowardice of the day, and I also realize that overthrowing Fan Zhefu is not just as simple as party struggle. ”

Yan Yong saw that he was sincere, and he couldn't bear to be harsh, and sighed: "After that court meeting, I secretly sent people to visit Shanxi, and sure enough, I found out that the disaster situation at that time was not as strict as he said, so it can be seen that he and Chen Jincheng wanted to be greedy in the name of disaster relief." ”

Lu Wenyuan suddenly said: "Yes." After that meeting, I happened to meet the displaced people who had entered Beijing, and they also said that the disaster situation was not so severe, and only a few people chose to become displaced people because they had too little land. At the time, I wondered what Fan Zhefu was lying about the disaster, but now I know his true purpose. At that time, he may have the same idea as Lord Yan, thinking that the summer has not passed, and it will rain in the coming day, although the summer harvest will be lost, but there is great hope in the autumn, and he can swallow the disaster relief silver from the emperor's hands this time, and when the autumn harvest is over and the disaster is alleviated, he will not know it. Who knows that people are not as good as the sky, Shanxi has not rained in the summer season, and the summer and autumn seasons are not harvested, and now the disaster is in full swing, if the emperor knows and asks about it, the embezzlement of disaster relief silver will be exposed, so he has repeatedly suppressed the twists and turns, and concealed it and did not report it. ”

Yan Yong nodded and said: "That Taiyuan prefect Chen Jincheng is a henchman he single-handedly raised, and it is not once or twice that he cooperates with him to do this corruption* thing. It's just that in the past, the number was not so huge, and the actions were not leaky, so although I knew, I never looked into it. However, this time it is a matter of the national economy and people's livelihood, and the amount of funds used is large, so I cannot sit idly by and ignore it any longer. After the court discussion, I thought about it and decided to seize the opportunity to dismiss Chen Jincheng and replace him with my subordinates, so as to prevent the two from joining forces inside and outside, who ......knows."

Lu Wenyuan sighed: "Lord Yan is confused, then Chen Jin is a local prefect, and he inevitably has to receive the holy decree on weekdays, Lord Yan's jade seal is forged, just find a copy of the previous true holy decree and compare it, didn't the adult think of it at that time?"

Yan Yongqi said: "Who said that my jade seal is forged?"

Lu Wenyuan also said curiously: "There is only one emperor's heirloom jade seal in the world, if it is not forged, where did Lord Yan get it?"

Yan Yong said: "The emperor's jade seal is usually received by the eunuch Gui Xi, who is my eyeliner in the palace, and I took it out as soon as I ordered him, so my holy decree is actually not fake, because the seal is a real heirloom jade seal, only the content was added later, but it was written in the emperor's tone, I really don't know how Chen Jiancheng found out." ”

Fu Qian said: "It may be that he was suspicious afterwards and wrote a chapter to ask Emperor Fan Zhefu whether he had issued this holy decree, but the two sides did not match, and the adult's strategy was exposed." ”

Yan Yong retorted: "But the time is not right, the excerpt presented from Shanxi, how can it take half a month to come and go, but not long after my fake edict went down, the recital of his complaint came up......"

The two of them were confused, but Lu Wenyuan's mind was not on this at all, just now he felt that something was wrong when he heard Yan Yong say, "Gui Xi is my eyeliner", according to his previous guess, Gui Xi should be Fan Zhefu's eyeliner, so he would know so clearly about Wara. But now that he heard Yan Yong's statement, the more Lu Wenyuan thought about it, the more shocked he became, and hurriedly pushed Fu Qian: "What about the holy decree? ”

Fu Qian was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly realized: "Yes, yes, holy decree." He stretched out his hand and touched it in his bosom for a long time, and took out the false holy decree.

When Yan Yong saw it, he was taken aback, and reached out to grab it and take a closer look: "How can this holy decree be here with you?"

Zhao Yongning was also surprised: "This is the false holy decree? The case of Jiao Zhao has not been able to be decided because of the lack of this physical evidence, but I didn't expect it to be hidden by Master Fu!"

Fu Qian smiled bitterly: "I didn't hide it, it was handed over to me by Lord Lu for safekeeping." When I was still the secretary of the ministry, I once went back to the lobby of the ministry in the middle of the night to pick up something, and saw Lord Lu and his family Lu An hiding inside, as if they were being hunted down. When Lord Lu saw me coming, he entrusted me with this holy decree and asked me to keep it safe...... By the way, Brother Lu, what happened that time?"

Lu Wenyuan then recounted the story of seeing Chen Jincheng in the cabinet and taking away the false decree in it, and because he was found out because of his false attachment to Fan Zhefu, he could not escape and was pursued by his subordinates. Everyone present listened to it and sighed for a while.

Lu Wenyuan's focus was not on this, and he hurriedly finished talking about the previous matter, and then asked Yan Yong: "Lord Yan just said that Gui Xi is your eyeliner, but how do I think that Gui Xi is Fan Zhefu's person?"

Yan Yong was really surprised when he heard it, and Lu Wenyuan told him about the Wara incident and Gui Xi about revealing the news of his advice to the emperor to Fan Zhefu. Seeing that everyone listened, they all lowered their heads and pondered, and said: "This Gui Xi is really strange, helping you Lord Yan on the one hand, and Fan Zhefu on the other, using both ends as eyeliner, I don't know what he is trying to do?"

Everyone was stunned for a long time, and Yan Yong finally said in a deep voice: "He did this, I'm afraid that someone is behind his back." Otherwise, if there is no one to support him, with the power of Fan Zhefu and me in the court, how can he dare to be so left and right? Which side will know in the future, I am afraid that he will only die without a place to be buried. ”

Fu Qian was surprised: "Then Lord Yan, do you know, who instructed it?"

Yan Yong said: "Master Fu, think about it, Fan Zhefu and I are both under one person, above ten thousand, this person, do you still need me to say it?"

Not only Fu Qian, everyone present gasped, and said in unison: "Could it be ......?"

Yan Yong sneered and said: "Everyone only says that he is ridiculous and mediocre, ignoring the government and politics, but they don't know that although he is in the harem, he knows everything about Yiqiē." Over the years, Fan Zhefu and I have fought to the death in the previous dynasty, and I have always felt that there is a force in the dark to mediate, not to let either side be too weak, nor to let any side be too strong, because although both sides have tried their best, they have always been able to distinguish between victory and defeat, and the government has been able to maintain balance. I used to guess that the emperor was in action, but I don't look at his idle shape on weekdays, but I don't look like it, so I've never been sure, but now when I hear you say this, I can't leave ten. It can be seen that the scheming of today's emperors is more profound than that of the previous emperors. ”

After hearing this, everyone felt a little chilled for a while, and they couldn't slow down for a long time. After being quiet for a while, Yan Yong coughed and broke the silence and said: "It's not a good thing that the emperor is like this, which shows that although he doesn't seem to care, he actually has a distraction from the government and will never ignore this disaster relief." What we have to do now is to let the emperor know about this as soon as possible. ”

Fu Qian said: "The emperor has lived in the harem for a long time, and there are only a few people he is willing to see on weekdays. Now that Lord Yan is in prison, Lord Lu is the only one of us who has a face in front of the emperor. ”

Lu Wenyuan nodded secretly, but he thought in his heart that Fan Zhefu was very strict with himself now, and he really didn't know how to sneak into the palace. After thinking for a while, he strengthened his conviction and said that even if he broke in this time, he would have to break in, so he got up and took a torch from the wall, and came over with a false decree in his other hand.

Everyone didn't know what he wanted for a while, but they heard him lower his voice and say: "I once said to Lord Yan that as long as the adults are dedicated to the country, Lu will resolutely support it to the end and will never harm him." I'm still saying that today. Today, we will take the burning of this false decree as an alliance to unite the front and fight to the end for the country and the people. With that, with a wave of the torch, the flames immediately licked up the corners of the false decree.

Everyone present was moved, Yan Yong was moved: "Lord Lu's life-saving grace, Yan will never forget, Yan swears here today, his lifelong wish is as Lord Lu wishes, dedicated to the country, do his best, and die." ”

Fu Qian also nodded again and again, but before he could speak, he heard Zhao Yongning rush to say: "Lord Lu! This is the physical evidence of the Jiaozhao case, no matter how you say that it will be burned!"

Fu Qian smiled and grabbed him: "It's time for you, you have to obey if you don't obey." ”

Zhao Yongning pretended to sigh: "The officials forced the people to rebel, and the people had to rebel." ”

All four laughed at the same time.