In the evening of the next day, two recitals were clearly placed in front of Zhu Shiyang, one was that Lu Wenyuan, the secretary of the ministry, asked for the dismissal of Liang Youqing on the grounds of mediocre political performance, and the other was that Fan Zhefu gathered some officials to impeach Lu Wenyuan for personal vendetta and abuse of power. The chapter not only described in detail the big and small festivals between Lu Wenyuan and Liang Youqing, but also attached the joint names of officials to confirm that it was indeed true, and only asked the emperor to severely punish him to set the record straight.

Zhu Shiyang's head was as big as a fight for a while, and he didn't know how to adjudicate. Cha Guixi took the pen and ink, remembering that the previous rumors had made him lose face, he couldn't help but be annoyed, and wanted to punish Lu Wenyuan as fast, but the tip of the pen pointed to the chapter, but he hesitated, just because he was in the harem for a few days, thinking quietly, he had calmed down a lot, and remembered the matter of Nawara, Lu Wenyuan's advice to be meritorious is indeed a thing, and he deserves this reward, but it is his own intention to take credit, his heart is not right, and now he has lost face and can't complain about others.

Fan Zhefu's recital is neatly written, the wording is elegant, the narrative is reasonable, and there is nothing to blame, but Zhu Shiyang is puzzled, just because Fan Zhefu came to him in front of him to ask for credit from Lu Wenyuan before, and now less than a few days later, he is righteous and wants to punish him, so he is not like the old minister's behavior, and he remembered the sentence Lu Wenyuan said when he advised himself, "Abnormality is a demon" , it is appropriate to describe his actions, and he feels that there is something strange, and he thinks about it more and more carefully.

Zhu Shiyang thought to himself, according to the current situation, Fan Zhefu wanted to punish Lu Wenyuan, obviously because he was in trouble with him, and when Lu Wenyuan asked not to execute Yan Yong before, he also said that he and Fan Zhefu were not in the same party, so this is basically certain.

Since the two were opposed to each other, with Fan Zhefu's mentality, he was bound to get rid of Lu Wenyuan as soon as possible, but he did the opposite, and came to ask for an official for him first, what was this for? I am afraid that it is a means used to achieve the ultimate goal, just to make himself angry with Lu Wenyuan, so as to punish him.

And he was angry with Lu Wenyuan, so that he would leak the advice and make himself lose face in the government and the opposition. It seems that this is the crux of the whole affair.

I thought about it here, but I got stuck again. Zhu Shiyang then thought about it from the beginning to the end, and according to the Wara incident, only himself, Gui Xi and Lu Wenyuan were involved from beginning to end. According to Fan Zhefu, Lu Wenyuan said this after he was drunk, but this is just his words, and it is unknown whether it is credible or not. Now I only assume that Lu Wenyuan didn't say it, and he didn't say it himself, then there is only one possibility for Gui Xi.

Zhu Shiyang thought about this, and couldn't help but unconsciously glance at Gui Xi, it was just a guess, and he didn't take it seriously, but he didn't realize that Gui Xi saw that he was staring at him, so his face was full of panic, his eyes were rolling, the situation was very suspicious, and he even used the excuse of going to change the tea, and raised his legs to slip away. Zhu Shiyang hurriedly stopped him and questioned carefully.

Gui Xi bowed and stood in place, so panicked that he didn't know where to put his hands and feet. Seeing this scene, Zhu Shiyang was even more sure of his guess, and threw the two pieces in front of him: "Tell me, what's going on?"

Gui Xi was so frightened that he hurriedly hid to the side, and muttered, "Slave...... The slave didn't know what was going on. ”

Zhu Shiyang sneered: "I don't know what you're panicking about?"

Gui Xi shuddered and said, "Go back to ...... Back to the emperor, the slave did not panic. ”

Zhu Shiyang smiled: "Why didn't you panic, why did you take the dust upside down?"

Gui Xi said: "The slave is coming." ”

Zhu Shiyang "snapped" the table case, and said: "Dog minion, have you come in circles with me?" Say, did you leak out of the previous Wara?"

Gui Xi knelt on the ground when he heard this, and no longer dared to lie, and kowtowed again and again: "The emperor spares his life, slave and maid...... The slave only told Master Fan alone, and never told anyone else. How did the adults of the previous dynasty know, the slaves and maids really don't know. ”

Zhu Shiyang snorted coldly and said, "Why did you tell him about this?"

Gui Xi said in a trembling voice: "It was Lord Fan who took the initiative to talk to the slave maid, and the slave maid thought it was nothing, so they all sued him, but later the trouble became known to the government and the public, and the emperor was so angry." It is the slave and the maid who deserve to die, and the slave and the maid deserve to die. "Anyway, peek at the emperor.

Zhu Shiyang didn't believe this excuse, and stared at him with a gloomy face. Gui Xi knew that he couldn't hide, so he had to tremble and put his hand into his arms, took out two ingots of silver, carefully rested them on the edge of the table, and said in a trembling voice: "Lord Fan gave so much to the slave maid, and the slave and maid did not move, please ask the emperor to spare the slave and maid." He kowtowed to the ground and kowtowed.

Zhu Shiyang was angry, grabbed the two ingots of silver and smashed them on Gui Xi's head, and said angrily: "Dog slave, just sell me for a hundred taels of silver? Is I worth so much money? It seems that your greed for money is incurable, so go and get fifty slaps." If there is a next time, I will choose your head!"

Gui Xi hurriedly thanked the saint and promised to go.

Zhu Shiyang calmed down, thinking that in this way, Fan Zhefu must have leaked out of the Wara incident, just to provoke himself, blame Lu Wenyuan, and then get rid of him by his own hand. Zhu Shiyang secretly sneered, picked up the pen Zhu Criticism, and said in his heart Fan Zhefu, Fan Zhefu, if you want to use me as a gunman, I will not fulfill your wish.

The next day, Fan Zhefu's wishful thinking failed, and he was shocked and entered the palace to ask the emperor. Gui Xi shrank aside with a swollen face and didn't dare to speak again, Zhu Shiyang still had to rely on Fan Zhefu to contribute in the front court, and it was inconvenient to tear his face with him, so he just pretended to be garlic and said: "I think this Lu Wenyuan is very good, as soon as he takes office, he will make drastic moves, and he is much better than that Fu Qian." ”

Fan Zhefu argued: "Lu Wenyuan demoted a first- and third-grade official to a commoner only on the grounds of mediocre political performance, which shows that his strong words are reasonable, and he has ill intentions, once it is made public in the future, how can he convince the public?"

Zhu Shiyang said lightly: "Since Lord Fan can persuade me to depose Fu Qian on the grounds of mediocre political performance, then why can't Lu Wenyuan depose Liang Youqing on this ground?

Fan Zhefu was stunned on the spot, intuition that he was afraid that promoting Lu Wenyuan was the biggest mistake he had made in his life.

Lu Wenyuan took the recital, but he was overjoyed, and he really wanted to kowtow three times in the direction of the Forbidden City. At the moment, Liang Youqing was cleared of his official status and repatriated to his hometown, and took advantage of Fan Zhefu's temporary lack of next action to rectify the officials in the ministry. After the chaos passed, the affairs of the ministry were finally on the right track.

On this day, Lu Wenyuan stayed late in the lobby of the Ministry because his business was not finished. When it came to the second watch, everything was silent, and only the intermittent drumming sound came from the streets, making this early autumn night seem even more deserted.

Lu Wenyuan closed the last paperwork, rubbed his eyes, and just wanted to get up, but he heard a rapid sound of horses' hooves from far and near, and in a blink of an eye, he arrived in front of the lobby. The horse was strangled and let out a long neigh, which was particularly poignant in the silence of the night. Lu Wenyuan's heart trembled, and before he could react, he saw a person slamming open the door and breaking in, it was Fu Qian who was out for assessment.

Lu Wenyuan was taken aback, and when he looked closely, he saw that his clothes were messy, his face was full of dust, he had not seen him for half a month, and he had obviously lost a circle, obviously suffering from a long-distance attack, and hurriedly asked: "Brother Fu, why did you come back so quickly?"

Fu Qian didn't answer him, turned around and covered the door, looked around again, and then walked closer and pulled him and whispered: "Brother Lu, I really let you give you the right information, the disaster situation in Shanxi is becoming more and more serious, and now it has reached the point of a desperate situation." ”

Lu Wenyuan frowned when he heard this, and sighed: "What did I expect, there haven't been a few rains in the capital this summer, and the climate in Shanxi has always been drier than in the capital, so it's naturally not much better." ”

Fu Qian nodded and said, "According to the instructions on your letter, I went to Shanxi first, and all I saw was the tragic scene after the disaster. After asking a few people, I learned that Shanxi was suffering from a great drought this year that had not been seen in a century, not only in the spring there was little rain, but also in the last summer season, there was not a drop of rain, and the locusts had repeatedly crossed the border, and the harvest in summer and autumn had been lost, and countless people died of starvation. ”

Lu Wenyuan clenched his fists and sneered: "The disaster has developed to such an extent, but I haven't heard any rumors in Beijing, Fan Zhefu's work is really airtight." ”

Fu Qian nodded and said, "There is no one else except him." After making an unannounced visit to Shanxi, I did not alarm the prefect Chen Jincheng, but went to several surrounding provincial roads to investigate, and learned that several other prefects had already reported the disaster to the imperial court, but they never responded, but I was afraid that they were all suppressed by Fan Zhefu. ”

Fu Qian said, passing the burden behind him, took out a few copies of the recital from it and said: "Several prefects also guessed that Fan Zhefu was the obstacle, but there was nothing they could do. Seeing that the victims of the disaster in Shanxi were pouring into the territory and were no longer able to resettle them, I had to ask me to bring the report of the disaster back to the capital and present it directly to the emperor, asking the emperor to arrange disaster relief as much as possible. If it is a little delay, when the displaced people revolt and rebel, I am afraid that the situation will be difficult to manage. ”

Lu Wenyuan was shocked when he heard this, picked up the piece and glanced at it roughly, his eyes were full of words of crying blood and mourning, and he only felt sad and indignant for a while, and said: "This Fan Zhefu is really hateful, it's just a matter of concealing the disaster and not reporting it, if it can be arranged for disaster relief instead of the emperor, it would be okay, but now the disaster is so severe, but he is still indifferent, and he ignores it, I really don't know what kind of heart he has." ”

Fu Qian frowned and said, "I also think it's strange. In fact, a similar situation has happened before, although Fan Zhefu hid it from the emperor, he did not hide it from other officials in the court, and was able to make appropriate arrangements to solve the problem in time. But now Fan Zhefu is not only hiding it from the emperor, but also from the officials of the DPRK and China, and has no reaction to the disaster, which is really weird. After thinking about it, he suddenly had the courage to guess: "Does he want to wait for the disaster to continue to expand, and take advantage of the uprising of the displaced people to rebel?"

Lu Wenyuan said: "Brother Fu can't talk nonsense. It's not a way for you and me to guess like this. Now, if you want to sort out a clue, you can only ask Yan Yong. There must be a reason why he made such a desperate attempt to pass on a false edict before, and the ten* has something to do with it. ”

Fu Qian said: "But that Yan Yong is detained in the prison of the Criminal Department, and his life and death are still unknown, how can he see it?"

Lu Wenyuan said: "I have my own way to do this." Brother Fu just needs to put these recitals away, don't leak the news, and the rest, listen to my news. ”