The official outbreak of Liu Lingtai's case was at the turn of June.

At the beginning of June, a scribe who had been dismissed by the government in the case of fraud in the tribute test was inexplicably drowned, and after an investigation by the Pingyuan Prefecture, it was believed that this person had come out of the courtyard of the outer room and accidentally fell into the water on the way home due to drunkenness, which was an accidental death. This was originally a very simple and ordinary case, but the family of the deceased did not accept the claim that he was drunk and drowned, insisting that it was a homicide, and that it was a poisonous hand of the outer chamber in order to achieve a long-term stay with his lover; They demanded that the case be reopened and justice should be given to the deceased. According to the criminal law of the Great Zhao, if the bitter lord shouted that the case must be retried, although the officials and servants of the Pingyuan Mansion scoffed at the so-called murder of the deceased's family, some people complained about the wrong, so they had no choice but to arrest the deceased's outer chamber and persuade the neighbors to come to the case for re-interrogation.

There is nothing special about the deceased's outer chamber itself, it is just an ordinary market woman, but the servants of the Plains Mansion have found three ingots and ten taels of official silver from her house! The officials of the Plains Mansion, who were forced to be anxious by the family of the deceased, immediately found a treasure, one by one, this is a suspicious point! Thirty taels of silver were converted into money, and the deceased was just a small scribe during his lifetime, how could he save such a large sum of money? Such a large sum of money is not kept at home, but hidden in the outer room, and there is inevitably something unspeakable in it!

The Plains Mansion immediately interrogated the deceased's outer chamber, but the woman couldn't tell the origin of the three ingots of official silver; She didn't even know that there was such a sum of money hidden in her home. However, the presiding judge was keenly aware of a strange incident in her repeated crying and pleading, that is, a middle-aged man had approached her man twice before and after the tribute examination of the Ministry of Rites, because each time the two of them avoided her and muttered quietly for a long time, so she had a deep impression of that person, and it seemed that he was a steward of an adult's family......

Pingyuan Mansion touched the melons, and soon found this person to be the second manager of the deputy chief examiner of the Chungong Examination one by one!

Since the case involves fraud in the tribute test, it is not something that the small Pingyuan Mansion Yamen can intervene into. After the Prime Minister's Office asked Emperor Dongyuan for approval, Yushitai took the lead in supervising it, and more than 30 officials were invited to Dongyuan Temple to be "guests" in October. By the time the case was concluded in October, the total number of officials involved in the case exceeded 200, and the three officials of the fifth rank or higher and dozens of officials were dismissed, demoted, or transferred to other places, headed by the right attendant of the official department who was "derelict in his duties" and ordered to "return to his hometown to think about it." The slow-moving faction in the court who advocated "recuperating with the people and accumulating national strength and advancing northward" suffered a major blow.

Two years later, the deputy chief examiner of Yazhou, who was demoted because of the fraud case in the Renxu Nian Gong Examination, died of illness in office, and left a suicide note on his deathbed, revealing that he was also forced to bend the law for personal gain. This suicide note was obtained by the Slow Progress faction, and it immediately became the best evidence for them to clear their injustices. Because there is a sentence in the letter, "The teacher's kindness is deep and cannot be repaid", so the spearhead of the counterattack of the slow advance faction was directly directed at the teacher of the deputy chief examiner, the teacher of the Dongyuan Emperor when he was still the prince, and the left attendant of the household department, Lang Tianwang. Tian Wang couldn't argue and was forced to resign. Implicated in this incident, the then Zuo Prime Minister resigned and returned to the opposition, a deputy minister was demoted and transferred to the prefect of Laizhou, and a squire was demoted to the rank of Pingyuan County Commander...... In the blink of an eye, a large number of officials were punished. At the same time, the resurgence of the Slow Progressives regained their prestige in the court.

Since then, the turmoil surrounding the 7th year of the Eastern Yuan tributary trial fraud has never stopped, sometimes the Slow Advance faction has the upper hand, sometimes their opponents have the upper hand; No matter which side controls the government, it will chase and fight its political opponents without mercy. From the 10th to the 14th year of the Eastern Era, countless officials were dragged down by the circumstances of this case and were dismissed, and the position of prime minister changed hands seven times in six years. In the end, the people on both sides were killed in the brutal struggle between them, and whether they were political opponents or not, as long as they did not like the eyes, they would indiscriminately put on the hat of "people in fraud cases." Ran Tao suffered such an unwarranted disaster, just because he couldn't look at some of the radical practices of the Slow Progress faction, and he complained two sentences in private, and he was almost confiscated......

This state of affairs lasted until the beginning of the 15th year of the Eastern Common Era. In February of that year, the two leading figures of the Slow Progressive faction passed away one after another, and the Slow Progressive faction suddenly fell into a chaotic situation without a leader, and the battle in the court gradually subsided. However, with Zhang Pu, who came back after Ding Wei, taking over as the right minister, there seem to be signs of a resurgence of turmoil.

After listening to Huo Shiqi's story, Shang Cheng didn't say a word for a long time. The story was too complicated for him to fully digest and comprehend for a while. There are also many ambiguous places in Huo Shiqi's account, and there are many doubts and loopholes, for example, in the whole process, the attitude of the Eastern Yuan Emperor has been very vague; It's well worth pondering. In addition, what role does Zuo Xiang Tang Xing play in it? Could this case be intrinsically linked to the struggle for imperial power?

There will be no definitive answer to these questions. Whether it was Huo Shiqi or Ran Tao, or Lu Ji and Di Xu, it was impossible for them to know the real answer.

Fortunately, he didn't need to know the answer.

Whatever! He is a general who leads troops to fight, and the turmoil in the court can't blow him here. His most important thing at the moment is how to clean up the Turks. Whether the court is in charge of the radicals or the slow-progressives has the final say, it has nothing to do with him!

Of course, he also understands that his ideas are not realistic. In fact, his attitude is already very clear......

He has one last question: Why is this case called the "Liu Lingtai case"?

"The Gongyuan is located in Liu Lingtai." Huo Shiqi said.

Shang Cheng froze. It's as simple as that? But he immediately understood the truth. The Liu Lingtai case is much more concise and obscure than the case of the Yan Nian Gong trial fraud. In any case, the fraud in the tribute test is a very disgraceful thing......

Huo Shiqi groaned and asked, "Look, do you want me to persuade Yanqing?" "Ran Tao is a talented and learned person, he is very serious in his work, and he also has a set of methods for handling official affairs. He felt that it was too condescending for such a person to be a deputy envoy in Gepingzhai. He explained for Ran Tao: "Yanqing still understands the reason, but he has suffered losses in his career, and he is a little forward-looking in doing things, and sometimes he doesn't dare to take responsibility, which can't be blamed on him, he is also cowardly and afraid after being framed." ”

Shang Cheng shook his head. That's it. First of all, he didn't want to force Ran Tao to go to Duanzhou; Secondly, even if Ran Tao agrees to be the general judge of Duanzhou now, he will not agree to this kind of person who is afraid to do things. He is not afraid that the people under him will make mistakes in doing things, but he is afraid that they will not do things because they are afraid of making mistakes. Ran Tao belongs to the latter.

He put aside the topic and said to Huo Lun, who had not spoken much: "Sixth uncle, choose us to talk about your affairs." ”

……