As Lu Zhen had expected earlier, the truth about the breach of the Yellow River in Xingze County had already been known to the Son of Heaven when he sent officials to inspect it, and although the details were not necessarily too clear, he knew that the matter must have something to do with King Zhou.

So after some weighing, the emperor decided to suppress the matter. After all, King Zhou is also a member of the old Zhu family, and the sins he created are really going to be poked out, and I am afraid that even the royal face will be lost, and the court will be deeply affected. Since it has happened, we can only grieve those local people, just if all this is indeed caused by natural disasters.

For this reason, the emperor not only did not ask Lu Zhen about the flood again, but also quickly asked the Yamen of Yousi to transfer the relevant officials from the capital, so as not to spread the matter in a hurry.

I thought that this matter would end here, and with Lu Jin's shrewdness, he would definitely be able to see some clues and no longer be entangled in this. Unexpectedly, after a few months, he actually went to Kaifeng in person, and also investigated the causes and consequences of this disaster. And you can check it, you can check it, and you actually stabbed the matter in front of Yu Qian, and now the emperor can't cover it up even if he wants to cover it up.

Zhu Qiyu was the complaining and entangled in his heart, and he couldn't express it, so he could only nod his head with a serious expression: "I already know about it." However, after all, this matter is related to the life and death of the vassal king of a place and the people of a county, and it cannot be arbitrarily decided because of this side. I think that this matter should be investigated carefully, and the truth must be found out before we can distinguish between right and wrong. In this way, this matter will be handed over to the people of the Metropolitan Procuratorate to go to the local area to investigate, as for Yu Ge Lao, you are busy with government affairs and you are old, so don't worry too much. ”

"Your Majesty, this matter has already been proven guilty, so why bother with it? If you still have questions, you can ask Wei Chengbo to bring human and material evidence back to Beijing, and then you can naturally give everyone an answer. Yu Qian didn't understand the holy will, and still insisted on his own opinion.

"What Yu Ge Lao said is very true, Your Majesty, the truth of this matter has already been ascertained, and you must not ignore the laws of the court because of the identity of King Zhou." At that time, many officials came forward to speak.

The emperor had his own insistence: "It is precisely because of the importance of the matter that I decided to send someone to find out the truth." After all, King Zhou's identity is extraordinary, how can he be convicted because of an impeachment. I have made up my mind, and you don't need to say much. I'm tired, retreat! ”

The emperor said so, and the ministers naturally couldn't insist anymore, so they could only retreat after shouting long live. But many of them had a look of determination on their faces, apparently intending to express their views on the matter. And the emperor's face when he saw this scene became more and more solemn: "Lu Qing, Lu Qing, why are you so nonsense and created such a big problem for me?" ”

Obviously, the Emperor was still overly optimistic about this matter, and the magnitude of the problem was completely beyond his understanding. On the same day, the General Administration Department received dozens of notes about the impeachment of King Zhou for all kinds of lawlessness. He disregarded human life, he destroyed river embankments, he used gunpowder privately, and he tried to seize the land of the people by despicable means...... After these piles were taken out one by one, they all became the targets of verbal criticism by officials.

Subsequently, some people even linked these crimes with such a big crime as having a disobedient heart, and bluntly said that if the Son of Heaven was not severely punished, it would make the world turbulent and increase the disobedience of the local vassal kings, and maybe there would be a rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms and Eight Kings in the Han and Jin Dynasties.

These impeachments are too serious, and even the emperor is shocked when he sees them. And the related topics are constantly extended, and even began to discuss various issues of honorables.

In fact, this is also the reason why the emperor planned to make a big deal small after learning about it. With the continuous improvement of civil power in the past few years, the power of military generals and nobles has been weakened, and some people have even begun to make a big fuss, wanting the imperial court to reduce the number and fiefdoms of some nobles, and in this regard, Zhu Qiyu obviously does not intend to move. Because this can be regarded as the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, if it moves, the future will inevitably be not small.

And now, things really broke out as he feared, which made the emperor feel more and more anxious, and he also deepened his prejudice against Lu Jin. I feel that all this is because of him, if he doesn't go on this trip, or report to himself first after finding out the truth, won't there be no such thing?

The emperor is still struggling, but the matter is getting more and more serious. Just a few days later, Jin Yiwei actually caught Gao Gong in the capital who was dredging up relations with some officials and wanted some adults to excuse their prince!

This time, it can be regarded as completely confirming King Zhou's crime. Originally, if you didn't feel empty-hearted, how could you send someone to the capital to do activities, and still send money and plead for mercy?

And once this matter was exposed, the courtiers who were still watching couldn't sit still at all, and the impeachment of King Zhou flew directly into the palace like snowflakes. Even though the emperor intends to protect him, he has always used the strategy of staying in the middle, but in the face of this raging situation, he is still a little unable to resist.

Now in this situation, as long as Lu Zhen takes advantage of the situation to bring relevant people into the capital, everything will be settled, and even the Son of Heaven will have a bad reputation for protecting his shortcomings. Now, even if he is reluctant, the emperor can no longer defend him.

And at this time, King Zhou, who was far away in Kaifeng, finally sent him over to exonerate himself - he was still counting on Gao Gong to be active in the capital to suppress the matter, but the matter became bigger and bigger, and even Gao Gong was imprisoned. After learning about this, he couldn't sit still any longer, and quickly put the strategy he had set before into action, and put all the blame on Zhu Zhe and other stewards, bluntly saying that he was also deceived by them to let them do such a disaster to the country and the people without knowing it.

Of course, the emperor hopes that everyone can accept this statement, but he will severely punish those domestic slaves of the Zhou Palace, but do not put the fault on the Zhou king. However, the ministers refused to stop there, and one after another refuted their statements were sent up one after another, and some people made a statement to the Son of Heaven at the court meeting, and there was a great deal of condemnation of King Zhou, and even a posture of condemning him.

At this point, the emperor knew that he could no longer protect King Zhou. So after some consideration, the final decision was announced-

Zhu Zhe and other culprits in this case were all punished for rebellion, and all of them were executed, and their families and children were exiled to the remote areas and were not allowed to return to the Central Plains as slaves. As for the king of Zhou, although he said that he was deceived by others, his crime still could not be eliminated, and there was also a felony of negligence, and several crimes were punished together, so that he would be confined to the palace forever in this life, and he would not go out for the rest of his life, and only wait for his eldest son to pass on the throne when he became an adult.

In addition, the royal government must then come up with enough money and food to help the people of Xingze County tide over the difficulties, and as long as one more citizen starves to death in this food shortage, the crime will be even more serious.

Although the courtiers were still a little dissatisfied with such a verdict, they could only accept it. Because everyone knows that this is the biggest concession that the Son of Heaven can make. After all, King Zhou is his uncle, and he is a member of the Zhu family, so their face still needs to be preserved. Now that he is confined to the palace for the rest of his life, in fact, it is not much different from being thrown into prison, they can't ask the real prince to break the law and commit the same crime as the people to imprison or even execute the dignified vassal king of a place, right?

And this ending of King Zhou is bound to greatly hit other nobles in the court, making them more and more careful in the future, and dare not rely on their identity to do things that violate the law.

However, the civil officials did not rejoice for long, and then the emperor's measures against them also came. Because there are many officials in the case of King Zhou who have covered up his crimes, especially the local officials who were sent to Kaifeng before actually concealed the truth and did not report it, their responsibility is not light. So in the end, they became accomplices in King Zhou's case.

Not only these officials, but also the officials and household officials who transferred them from the capital were also implicated, so there were more than a dozen people who were dismissed.

When this result appeared, there was another uproar in the DPRK and China. In fact, everyone has long known that these officials have only been accepted on behalf of others, and they have been arranged in this way by the order of the Son of Heaven, but this kind of thing is not easy to say directly. As for these implicated officials, they could only consider themselves unlucky, and they had no choice but to be punished, so they left the court.

Looking at it this way, it seems that no one has benefited from the whole thing, whether it is the Son of Heaven, civil officials, or nobles, they have all suffered a lot of losses because of this incident. But soon, everyone found out that there were actually people who profited from it, that is, Jin Yiwei and Lu Jin, who exposed this case.

Because of this, his reputation in the government and the opposition is getting bigger and bigger, Wei Chengbo, who was almost forgotten because of the silence of the past two years, has been mentioned by countless people this time, especially the people inside and outside the capital, when mentioning him, they have to give a thumbs up and praise the lord of the blue sky.

"This Lu Zhen is really a terrible guy, either he doesn't move, but once he moves, he can pull so many people into the water. And he himself can benefit a lot from it, his hedgehog attribute is really powerful. The old man in the court unconsciously remembered his past, and remembered the fate of those who were his enemies.

But is that really the case?

Only Lu Jin, as the person concerned, knows that in fact, the price he has paid in this matter is not small, because in this way, the Son of Heaven has a little more resentment towards himself. For this reason, he even made a special decree that he did not have to rush back to Beijing, so he rushed to Jiangnan and solved an important matter related to the Ming court......