Killed Yingbu with white silk, worshiped the ancestors of the Xiang family, and sent away Zhao Xie, Zang Di and Wu Rui, three princes and kings with different surnames.

As for Xiang Kang's original plan to parade Yunmengze - the fathers and villagers of Linjiang and Yunmengze, it's not that my Han Emperor Xiang Kang doesn't want to care for you, it's Yingbu's dog thief who rebelled and rebelled, his henchmen and accomplices in Linjiang are numerous, and there may be changes at any time, I am for the sake of the world, and even more so that you can live and work in peace and contentment and no longer suffer from the flames of war, so I can only give priority to sending capable officials to take over Linjiang, arrest and suppress the fellow party lackeys of the Yingbu rebels, stabilize the domestic order in Linjiang, and wait until peace is restored. I can personally come to Linjiang to care for and comfort you!

During this period, Xiang Kang's careful arrangements in advance also received satisfactory results, and even before the news of Yingbu's rebellion reached the ears of his party henchmen, the Han court envoys had already rushed to Jiangling with Xiang Kang's edict, and with the help of the local officials appointed by the Han court, Yingbu's wife, children, and several important comrades were arrested and imprisoned.

The general trend is that Yingbu has been taken down and executed on the spot in Chen County, and seeing that the army directly under the Han Dynasty quickly entered and controlled various key points including Jiangling, the capital of Linjiang State, most of Yingbu's subordinates still chose to surrender decisively, and honestly handed over the power in their hands to cooperate with the Han Dynasty army to take over Linjiang, in exchange for life and continue to enjoy the glory and wealth, only a few Yingbu cronies who knew in advance chose to commit suicide or escape, and only one of them was a Linjiang general named Wang Huang who escaped successfully, Let the Han court completely put down the Anglo-Bu rebellion at a small cost, and there was no major upheaval in Linjiang itself.

After confirming these circumstances, Xiang Kang's Luan driver had also successfully returned to the Guanzhong Plain, and then at this time, Lou Jing, a pawn who accompanied Xiang Kang on patrol, suddenly put forward an important suggestion, suggesting that Xiang Kang choose a suitable place on the Guanzhong Plain to build a new city and move the imperial palace to the new city Dingdu, the purpose of which was to strengthen the defense force of the Han capital, second, to improve the living conditions of the officials and the common people, to facilitate the management of Gyeonggi affairs, and third, to weaken and eliminate the resistance of the people outside the Guanxi to Xianyang.

With Xiang Kang's character and the current financial situation of the Han Dynasty, Xiang Kang was of course unwilling to work hard to build a new city, but Lou Jing clearly pointed out to Xiang Kang that it was said that the people outside the Guanxi had suffered from the wars and chaos in the east of the Qin State for hundreds of years, and they had a deep resentment against Xianyang, the capital of Qin.

In addition, Lou Jing also said that after Xiang Kang moved the capital, he could vacate a large amount of land and houses, and then take the opportunity to move the royal family and nobles of the six countries outside the Guanzhong to live in Guanzhong, which can not only show Xiang Kang's care and compassion for the six countries outside the Guanzhong, but also change the population structure of Guanzhong, and prevent the old Qin people from continuing to dominate the family.

Listening to Lou Jing's reasonableness, coupled with the fact that the Xiongnu had expanded to the Hetao region, the threat to Xianyang, which was not protected by the city wall, was quite small, Xiang Kang nodded after repeated calculations, and said: "When I return to Xianyang, I will immediately discuss with Uncle Ya and them to see how to build a new capital there." ”

After making up his mind, in order to avoid disturbing the people as much as possible, as soon as he arrived in Dingqin, Xiang Kang specially sent people to return to Xianyang first, so that Zhou Zeng, who led hundreds of officials to stay in Xianyang, would no longer organize the people to meet each other. However, to Xiang Kang's surprise, a few days later, before his imperial chariot arrived at Bashang, many Xianyang people knelt on the road to stop his car, and kept shouting grievances, asking Xiang Kang to uphold justice for them.

"Your Majesty, please call the shots for us!"

"Your Majesty, the grass people are wronged! Please do us justice! ”

Hearing these voices of the people of Xianyang, Xiang Kang, who had encountered this kind of thing for the first time, was surprised, and of course immediately ordered to summon the representatives of the people to personally understand the cause of the matter. Then in a moment, several gray-haired old men were led to Xiang Kang, and as soon as they saw Xiang Kang, they fell to the ground and bowed down, and shouted loudly with great grievance: "Your Majesty, please be the master of the grass people!" The prime minister was too bullying, forcing us to sell the house and land to him at a cheap price, and threatening that if we didn't sell, we would be arrested and put in prison! ”

"Is there such a thing? Buying houses and land at a low price? If you don't sell it, you have to arrest people? ”

Xiang Kang was furious when he heard this, and immediately turned his suspicious gaze to Chen Ping, the right prime minister of the Han Dynasty next to him—as for the reason, it was very simple, Chen Ping was notoriously unclean in terms of money. Chen Ping, who accompanied Xiang Kang on patrol, was also a thief, and hurriedly bowed to Xiang Kang, and said: "Your Majesty forgives me, Your Majesty really doesn't know about this matter, please rest assured, if these things are really done by Your Majesty's sons and nephews or doormen under the banner of Your Majesty, Your Majesty will immediately take them all down and hand them over to Tingwei for severe punishment." ”

Xiang Kang nodded, and when he was about to open his mouth to comfort the few representatives of the people, he never thought that a representative of the people shouted loudly again, "Your Majesty, it is not the right prime minister, it is not the right prime minister, it is the left prime minister, it is the relatives of the left prime minister who forced us to sell our houses and fields cheaply." ”

"What? Prime Minister Zuo?! ”

Xiang Kang and Chen Ping thought that their ears had heard it wrong, and then they quickly glanced at each other, and exclaimed in unison: "What are you kidding?" Can Uncle Ya do such a thing? ”

The sun really came out of the west, and Zhou Zeng, who was known for his honesty as early as when he issued a county order, did live up to Xiang Kang's trust in him this time, although Xiang Kang and Chen Ping both said that they would not believe that Zhou Zeng would be corrupt and greedy to this extent, but on the accusation documents submitted by several representatives of the people, it was clearly written that Zhou Zeng took advantage of Xiang Kang's patrol this time, and used the power in his hands to connive at the misdeeds of his relatives and subordinates, and forcibly bought the people's houses and fertile land at a price far below the market price, not to mention embezzling huge sums of money. He also arrested and imprisoned more than 20 innocent people who refused to sell their fields and houses, and the means were tantamount to forcible robbery.

"Really? Uncle Ya would really do such a thing? ”

Although he still felt a little unbelievable, in front of the representatives of the people of Xianyang, Xiang Kang still immediately promised to send someone to investigate these things thoroughly, and give justice to the innocent people of Xianyang as soon as possible, and then quickly ordered the car to set off, intending to question Zhou Zeng about the matter in person after returning to Xianyang Palace. But after gradually coming back to his senses, Xiang Kang suddenly moved in his heart, and said secretly: "No, this situation, I seem to have seen it in that book or TV movie?" ”

After recalling it carefully for a while, and remembering similar related things recorded in the history books, Xiang Kang smiled bitterly again, and said secretly: "It's really cold from a high place, I didn't expect Uncle Ya to give me this hand, no, I have to talk to Uncle Ya alone, so that he doesn't have to do this." Otherwise, if even he is separated from me, I will not be able to find anyone I can trust. ”

After making this decision and successfully returning to Xianyang Palace, after going through various etiquette scenes, Xiang Kang of course immediately put Zhou Zeng, who had stayed in Guanzhong for many years, into the apse, put aside outsiders and spoke to him alone, and then directly asked Xu Ji to hand over the documents accusing Zhou Zeng by the people of Xianyang, and said: "Uncle Ya, there are no outsiders, let's say, why do you want to do this?" ”

Zhou Zeng rarely pretended to be in front of Xiang Kang, first deliberately looked at the documents accusing him of forcibly robbing the people's property with a surprised face, and then hurriedly left the table to bow to Xiang Kang, and said with sincere fear: "Your Majesty is guilty, and your Majesty is confused for a while, and I want to take advantage of the fact that I have some spare money in my hand now to buy more properties for my children and grandchildren, so I let people buy fields and industries in Xianyang, but I didn't expect ......." ”

"Uncle Ya! Come on! ”

Xiang Kangji interrupted Zhou Zeng's explanation angrily, and said very directly: "You use this set of rhetoric to perfunctory others, whether you are a person who loves money or not, I know better than anyone else." I only want to ask you now, are you worried that I will be jealous of your reputation for honesty, and I am even more afraid that I will worry that you will win the hearts of the people in Guanzhong, and take advantage of my departure from Guanzhong to do something great? That's why you deliberately forcibly seized people's wealth, stimulated your reputation, and reassured me? ”

"Your Majesty will never dare to die." Zhou Zeng hurriedly denied it.

"Then why are you doing this?" Xiang Kang sneered and asked, "If you just want money, can you use such a means to rob and rob it?" Although my court has set up two prime ministers on the left and right, but the right prime minister Chen Ping is mainly for me to give advice and supervise hundreds of officials, and the power of money and food has always been in your hands, you only need to leak a little bit of your fingers, how much money you want, why do you need to spend so much effort to do such a conspicuous and hateful thing? ”

Seeing that Xiang Kang had already seen through his intentions, Zhou Zeng could only close his mouth, while Xiang Kang sighed first, then stood up, walked slowly on the apse and said, "Uncle Ya, do you think that if you do this, I will be happy?" You're wrong, and if you do this, I'll only be sad! Because by doing so, you are suspecting that I am the kind of despicable villain who hides his bow and crosses the river and demolishes the bridge, and the unscrupulous tyrant who kills the rabbit and the dead dog, and the donkey, am I like that? ”

Zhou Zeng was still silent, and Xiang Kang didn't force him to speak, but continued to talk to himself: "Yes, I just killed Yingbu, who made a great contribution, but was he wronged?" The things he did in Linjiang, which one and that shouldn't be punished? In this way, before I toured Chen County, I also decided that as long as he could obediently confess his sins and surrender to the law, I could spare him from death, change him to Hou, and continue to let him enjoy glory and wealth, it was he who wanted to rebel and kill me, so I had to kill him! Did I do anything wrong in this matter? ”

"Of course Your Majesty has done nothing wrong, Yingbu deserves death for the crime of rebelling against his ministers, and His Majesty gave him a whole corpse, which is already a grace to him." Zhou Zeng finally spoke and replied cautiously.

"Uncle Naya, why do you still have to stigmatize yourself? Doing something like this on purpose? ”

Xiang Kang immediately took over the conversation, and asked Zhou Zeng speechless again, Xiang Kang waited for a moment and did not see Zhou Zeng speak, then sighed again, and said slowly: "Uncle Ya, to put it mildly, I have always thought that others may not be able to believe me, and I am worried that I am the one who kills the donkey with the bow and the bow of the bird, but Uncle Ya, you will definitely not be so trustworthy, and you will definitely be able to work with my monarch and ministers to become a model of Ming Jun and Xian who will always be admired by future generations." But I only learned today that I believe in you, but Uncle Ya, you don't believe me, and you may even never believe in me. ”

"Uncle Ya, don't worry, I don't mean to blame you." Xiang Kang said: "I can only blame myself for being naïve, and I didn't understand until today that since I have been called a lonely widow, I must be prepared to become a lonely person, and there can be no more trustworthy people, even if it is an elder whom I have always respected, a friend of me, and a relative and brother of me, even if I am eager to dig out my heart to show him, he will never be ...... with me again." ”

The words from the bottom of his heart were emotional, Xiang Kang's voice couldn't help but become a little hoarse, and the expression on his face was even more lonely, Zhou Zeng was full of guilt, and hurriedly interrupted Xiang Kang's words, and said: "Your Majesty, don't say it, Your Majesty is guilty, Your Majesty admits that the matter of buying people's land at a low price is indeed deliberately done by Your Majesty in order to destroy your name, but Your Majesty can swear to God, and the reason why Your Majesty does this is definitely not because you can't believe Your Majesty, let alone because you are afraid that Your Majesty will hide all your subordinates' birds." His Majesty did this for other reasons. ”

"Then Uncle Ya, what is the reason why you tell me?" Xiang Kang immediately asked.

"Your Majesty, I don't know if you still remember the incident of Shanglin Yuan?" Zhou Zeng did not answer the rhetorical question, and continued: "Your Majesty, after you entered the Guanzhong, in order to save money and food and reduce the burden of Li Shu, you adopted the advice of your subordinates, let go of all the rare birds and beasts in captivity in Shanglin Yuan, and sealed Shanglin Yuan. After the autumn harvest last year, Your Majesty, you granted the plea of your subordinates to reopen part of the gardens of Shanglin Garden, so that the wives and wives of our meritorious soldiers and fallen soldiers could enter the garden to cultivate and open up the wasteland, and more than 200,000 mu of land was reclaimed just during spring plowing this year. ”

"With the trust of His Majesty, this matter is handled by his subordinates." Zhou Zeng's expression also became a little bitter, and said: "Because of this incident, the ministers offended many colleagues who wanted to take the opportunity to occupy the land of Shanglin Yuan, and because of this incident, the head of Li Shu Qiantou in Guanzhong built six ancestral halls for his subordinates, and the ministers did not check for a while, and failed to stop them in time, so when the subordinates knew, the ancestral halls had already been built." ”

"Uncle Ya is afraid that those colleagues who have been offended by you will take the opportunity to slander Uncle Ya and slander Uncle Ya, you have different intentions?" Xiang Kang immediately understood what Zhou Zeng meant.

Zhou Zeng nodded calmly and said: "Your Majesty, the minister knows that you are not a jealous person, and he will definitely not mind this kind of thing, but the three of them become tigers, if there are more people who slander Your Majesty, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no accidents." Moreover, this matter also involves our military officers and soldiers, and if your subordinates do not quickly clear up the relationship, I am afraid that they will be more likely to be at a loss in the future. ”

Xiang Kang sighed again, nodded and said, "Uncle Ya, you don't need to say it, I understand what you mean." Don't worry, if I can't trust you, I won't keep you in Guanzhong all the time, so no matter who makes a fuss about this matter, it won't have any impact on you. ”

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Zhou Zeng paused heavily, and then said: "Your Majesty, since the words have come to this point, Your Majesty doesn't want to hide it anymore. In fact, when others suggested that His Majesty do this, His Majesty also considered whether it was necessary to do so, but His Majesty took the liberty to weigh the pros and cons for His Majesty, and felt that it was necessary to do so. ”

"Why?" Xiang Kang asked curiously.

"Hou Longhe, a drunkard and indulgent in Hanoi, has killed his domestic servants indiscriminately several times when he was drunk." Zhou Zeng recited and said: "Wanhou Zhong is ambiguous, privately shelters illegal guests, eats and lives luxuriously, and chases the prince. Liyang Hou Ding is lustful, and there are more than 40 wives and concubines, some of which are beautiful concubines he bought from the people. Boyang Marquis Zhu Jishi is also the same problem, although the number of wives and concubines is not as many as Ding Ji, but two of them are the concubines of Qi Wang Tianguang who should have been brought to Xianyang to be disposed of by the imperial court. Zheng Bu, Marquis of Jinyang, encroached on nearly 20,000 acres of ownerless fertile land on the banks of the Fenshui River, and the number of wives and concubines was also more than that of Your Majesty. ”

"Your Majesty, I don't know if you know these things, Your Majesty." Zhou Zeng also sighed, and then said: "Your Majesty only knows, even if Your Majesty knows these things, you can't bear to be unwilling to pursue these Your Majesty's ministers, but if you don't give these people a wake-up call, I'm afraid they will only become more lawless in the future, and they will go further and further on the wrong road." ”

"The best way to remind them is to make an example." Zhou Zeng's smile became bitter again, and he said: "Your Majesty is your uncle, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty who has stayed in the pass for many years, and the first of the hundred officials is the third duke, of course, the most suitable chicken." In addition, taking this opportunity, you can also make Your Majesty more at ease with your subordinates, killing two birds with one stone, so your subordinates deliberately made a forced purchase of people's land. ”

Xiang Kang didn't say anything more, but picked up Zhou Zeng with his own hands, and then bowed to Zhou Zeng, and said very sincerely: "Uncle Ya, it's the little nephew who blames you, and the little nephew really understands your good intentions now, and let you be wronged." ”

"Your Majesty doesn't have to be polite, these are what ministers should do." Zhou Zeng hurriedly returned the salute and said with a smile: "Your Majesty, rest assured, Your Majesty will go to Guanzhong Li Shuqian to apologize tomorrow and return their mansions and fields. ”

Xiang Kang patted Zhou Zeng's shoulder and said, "Uncle Ya, don't worry, what you took the initiative to sacrifice, I will definitely double it for you in the future." ”

Before the matter was over, after saying some heart-wrenching words to Zhou Zeng, and discussing how to wake up the heroes who had gradually begun to become corrupt and degenerate, Xiang Kang suddenly remembered something again, and hurriedly asked: "Uncle Ya, listening to your tone just now, you deliberately bought Mintian at a low price, as if someone else gave you the idea, who is this person?" ”

"Back to Your Majesty, it is a guest of your subordinates, named Shao Ping." Zhou Zeng replied truthfully: "When this Shao Ping was in the previous dynasty, he was once named the Marquis of Donglin by the violent Qin Emperor Yingzheng, and guarded the tomb of Yingzheng's biological mother Zhao Ji. Your Majesty, after you entered the Guanzhong, he was reduced to cloth clothes, and he made a living by planting melons in the tyrant, and was later accepted as a guest by his subordinates. ”

After that, Zhou Zeng, who misunderstood Xiang Kang's meaning, hurriedly added: "Your Majesty, this Shao Ping made suggestions to his subordinates, just to prevent his subordinates from being pushed to the forefront, there is absolutely no intention to provoke, if Your Majesty does not like him to do this, your majesty will give him a sum of money when he goes back, and send him home to continue planting melons." ”

"Uncle Ya, you misunderstood, I didn't blame him, I was just a little interested in this Shao Ping."

Xiang Kang shook his head, and said in his heart: "This puppet is not simple, he has a mind and a long-term vision, he can see the danger that Uncle Ya may encounter early on, and he can also persuade Uncle Ya to do something self-degrading with such a clean official who cherishes feathers, which shows that his eloquence is definitely not as bad as there, if such a person is used well and used in a place suitable for him to display his skills, maybe he can receive miraculous results?" ”

Thinking about this, and thinking of his current top priority, Xiang Kang quickly made up his mind in his heart, and said secretly: "Give it a try, although it may not succeed, but even if it fails, it doesn't matter, the big deal is to continue to act according to my original plan." ”

After saying this sentence in his heart, Xiang Kang immediately instructed Zhou Zeng: "That's it, Uncle Ya, after this limelight, you bring that Shao Ping to see me, I have an envoy who wants to arrange it for him, see if he has the courage to do it." ”