The palace maids and eunuchs standing around left worriedly, and not long after, a steady footstep sounded outside the door.

Two faces appeared in front of Wang Zheng and Li Yan, it turned out to be Wei Dong, the chief scoop of the spy department, and Zhao Zhenbo, the brocade guard of the original imperial court, who is also a leader now.

Wei Dong was dressed in black, and Zhao Zhenbo had already put the standard equipment of the original Jinyi Guard, the embroidered spring knife and the flying fish suit, in his home treasure, and now he was wearing an ordinary plain clothes.

"There is no need to be formal, if you find anything, this king must know immediately."

The two glanced at each other, and finally Wei Dong came out and clasped his fists and said:

"King Qi, since receiving the order, the brothers of the Espionage Department have been scattered in the capital day and night to listen, and now there are our eyes and ears in the homes of various ministers, and we have received some not very good news."

Speaking of which, Wei Dong paused and continued:

"On the day Li Chuang attacked the city, this Cao Huachun had actually returned to his hometown for six years, and he was in his hometown of Wuqing, and he was definitely not in the capital, and there was solid evidence for this."

"As for who opened the Guangning Gate, although I haven't found out, I have heard some rumors, but there is no evidence yet."

Wang Zheng snorted coldly and threw the fold he was looking at to the ground:

"This king knows that these Donglin civil officials don't have a good thing, look at these folds, they are actually some high-sounding, and they look like anyone else!"

Zhao Zhenbo took a few steps forward, picked up the fold and carefully put it on the imperial case, and said in a low voice:

"According to some people living near Guangning Gate, on the day Li Chuang attacked the city, a group of celebrant eunuchs came to Guangning Gate, but they were all ordered to support the defenders of the city, and they all died on the city wall with swords, and no one opened the door."

Hearing this, Wang Zheng was a little puzzled, haven't eunuchs always been literati who say that they are greedy for life and afraid of death, how to bend their knees and surrender are literati, but there are many eunuchs who fight to the death.

"Who drove it, not eunuchs, could it be that the Beijing battalion soldiers guarding the city can't succeed?"

"Back to the prince, the one who opened the Guangning Gate was neither a eunuch who was greedy for life and afraid of death, nor a large battalion of soldiers who had no combat power, not long after Li Chuang attacked the city, the battalion dispersed, and it was a group of people with suspicious faces and white plain clothes and turbans wrapped up and down."

"It's hard to say who it is."

After Zhao Zhenbo finished speaking, he took a few steps back, and Wei Dong continued;

"Lord Wang, these suspicious people are most likely a group of Muslims!"

"A few days before Li Chuang attacked the city, many Hui people traded in the horse market, and many people said that they saw it with their own eyes, and the Hui people took advantage of the chaos to open the door and escape, and followed the soldiers into the city, but this statement is also a lowly speculation based on folk rumors, and it cannot be fully believed."

As the intelligence of the spies of the spy department gathered little by little, things did have some eyebrows.

First of all, what Wang Zheng can be sure of is that this Guangning Gate was definitely not opened by Cao Huachun, it was someone who opened the door and wanted to find someone to bear the charge, looking for it, of course, the eunuch is the best, and no one will doubt it.

Secondly, the openers of Quang Ninh Gate have different opinions and can no longer be determined.

The spies of Wang Zheng's spy department are all over the capital and outside, walking among the people and various mansions, from trivial matters to murder and goods, everything can be known.

Some people say that the Hui people of the horse market trade took advantage of the chaos to open the door and escape, some people say that the minister sent his servants to secretly collude with Li Chuang, and some say that it is a group of chaotic people who opened the city.

As far as Wang Zheng is concerned, if he does not want to follow in the footsteps of Li Zicheng, the first thing is to stabilize people's hearts, and Beijing must quickly settle down, at least there must be no internal chaos.

Gentle means are used for ordinary people, these officials and gentry have to slap and throw a sweet date, blindly appeasement can only have the opposite effect, making them more and more arrogant, swaying everywhere like grass on the wall, Wang Zheng doesn't want to let people stab him in the back one day.

In order to set an example to the monkeys, the person who really opened the door must be found.

However, this "real opening" is in an ordinary sense, and this person Wang Zheng can't be sure who it is, can't find any evidence, and can't arrest all the people involved.

Since he wants to rehabilitate Cao Huachun, he naturally needs someone to take the blame for this matter.

So you need to find a substitute for the dead, this substitute for the dead ghost must be able to kill the chicken and set an example, and also kill the rest assured,

The Hui people are the best choice, but now they are long gone, and there is nowhere to find them, so they can only start from the official gentry, and it is not enough to kill only one Lin Gui.

This person is just an unpopular official, and it is very likely that the words he said in the court at that time were promoted by the people behind him, so he had to find a small one to carry this pot.

Thinking of this, Wang Zheng motioned for Wei Dong and Zhao Zhenbo to go down, and after a while asked:

"On the day Li Chuang attacked the city, who had conclusive evidence to open the door and surrender?"

"That's a lot..."

Li Yan suddenly remembered a large number of people in his mind, and said:

"The eunuch Wang Xiangyao of the imperial horse eunuch opened the second gate of Desheng and Fucheng, Liu Yao, the waiter of the Ministry of Rites, opened the Xuanwu Gate, the eunuch Zhang Yongyu opened the Chaoyang Gate, the waiter of the Ministry of War, Zhang Jinyan, opened the Zhengyang Gate, and Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo, opened the Chaoyang Gate——"

Before he finished speaking, Wang Zheng waved his hand to signal to stop, and muttered:

"How is Zhang Jinyan?"

Hearing this, Li Yan took out a copy from the dossier and handed it to Wang Zheng, and then said:

"Lord Wang, Zhang Jinyan is a good candidate."

"One, he was quite famous among the Donglin scholars; Second, he is a high-ranking official in the military department, and third, Zhang Jinyan is a soft bone, when Li Chuang crossed the Hebei to attack, Chongzhen ordered him to draft a document calling on the kings of Qin everywhere, but this Zhang Jinyan has been concealing it, and it has dragged on for more than a month. ”

In fact, there is another candidate, that is, Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo, but he has already been killed by Li Chuang, and Li Zicheng and Wang Zheng must have similar thoughts at that time, and they all need to find a big official to calm people's hearts.

Although Liu Yao, the waiter of the Ministry of Rites, is also a waiter, his prestige in Shilin is too far behind that of Zhang Jinyan, and the Ministry of Rites has long been an idle yamen, dealing with all matters of etiquette and music, and it is inferior among the six departments.

Now that the candidate has been determined, there is nothing to hesitate about, just give the order to take the person.

As the order came out of the Forbidden City, Deng Heizi and Gao Liang respectively took a team of forbidden soldiers, these people with knives and guns, murderously ran out of the Yamen of the Five Cities in the East City and the West City in the dark night, and went straight to the two places.

These two places are the mansions of the official Lin Gui and the military squire Zhang Jinyan, and when Deng Heizi arrived at Lin Gui's mansion, he found that there was a dead silence inside.

After knocking on the door several times to no avail, Deng Heizi ordered the door to be slammed with a hardwood.

With a "boom", the gate of the Lin Mansion collapsed, and Deng Heizi rushed in with the soldiers of the forbidden army, only to find that there were only some panicked women and maids inside.

As for Lin Gui, he has long since disappeared.