On the third day of the sixth month of the first year of Shengong, the heavy rain in Luoyang, the capital of the gods, was like a note, and the cool official Lai Junchen was beheaded and abandoned the city. On the road with him was Li Zhaode, a famous minister of the generation who was framed and imprisoned by Lai Junchen. When the two heads rolled to the ground, the crowd of onlookers suddenly boiled.

The human head with the handsome face and the slightly bloated corpse were torn and trampled by the angry crowd as soon as they landed, and instantly became a puddle of muddy flesh with blurred flesh and blood, this is Lai Junchen.

And the other body still has the head that is bubbling with blood, but someone quietly covers a straw mat, and that is Li Zhaode.

The rain continued to rain vigorously, as if to wash away the bloody mud without leaving a trace, and the rain-soaked crowd was reluctant to leave for a long time with residual anger and a trace of sadness......

Emperor Wu only learned about the scene shortly afterwards. Earlier, she was still nervous about ordering the execution of Lai Junchen, but hearing the news was enough to shock her.

Lai Junchen is her single-handed caretaker dog, who has accompanied her for many years, serving her before and after the saddle. However, dogs are meant to bite, which is determined by the animalistic nature of dogs.

Both inside and outside the palace knew that Lai Junchen was a biting dog, and his eyes were open, staring at every courtier, even the royal family, all the time, and anyone who was not careful would be bitten by him, or even bitten to death by him. What the Empress Wu values is the habits of dogs,

In addition to using the minister, she needs to have a dog that is loyal to her master and cares over the house, and she can deal with the courtiers who oppose her.

And Junchen's dog bit out so much hatred, so many enemies, that people wanted to eat him raw. This was something she didn't expect. In fact, the dog's loyalty to its master is ultimately for its own needs;

This need for oneself is never free from the dog's bestial instincts. It is the polar opposite of Lai Junchen's death. Li Zhaode's death was quite tragic, he won people's sympathy and regretted his death. This also caused Emperor Wu to be more vigilant and emotional.

The Wu Zhou Dynasty was a dynasty established by Emperor Wu according to his own will and authority. This dynasty is like the Ruishi of Luohe. From the time it surfaced to the time the dust settled, it was felt unbelievable and incredible. Too many mysteries,

Too much apostasy gives people more reasons to be suspicious, to wait and see, to part ways with it, and even to fight back.

Many of them have paid with their lives. Pei Yan, the first auxiliary minister, Liu Yizhi, a bachelor of the North Gate, and Li Jingye and the princes and nobles of the Li clan. Not at all. Emperor Wu was full of confidence and pride in establishing such an unprecedented dynasty, but there was also anxiety and uneasiness lurking in his heart.

This dynasty endured unbearable thrills and criticisms while still in its mother's womb, and after its birth, it floated in greater risks. And all of this must be faced directly by her. It is not only a direct and indirect confrontation and a naked rebellion, but also the consolidation of the monarchy's position under the division of monarchy and subjects.

The balance of royal clan power. Before she could do so, she needed to clear the hurdles and deal a fatal blow to those who opposed it; After weighing. She values the power of the monarch and needs the trust and loyalty of the monarchy;

intolerant of blasphemy, suspicion, and rebellion against the monarchy; She did not forget the lesson of the early Gaozong minister, Changsun Wuji, who was in power, and needed to effectively spy and monitor the powerful ministers and even princes and nobles around her.

There needs to be checks and balances on their powers. It is also necessary to mercilessly eliminate those hidden dangers that pose a threat to the monarchy. The cruel reality, Emperor Wu is to the ministers around him and those princes and nobles,

Always be skeptical. After too much betrayal and swordsmanship. She does not believe that there is sincere cooperation between monarchs and ministers, and there is only the interdependence of interests. Even those who are considered cronies,

Motivated by self-interest or guarded by reputation. There is always the possibility of betraying her, which makes her have to be on guard and not be too trusting and dependent on others. In Emperor Wu's view, if you want the monarch and the minister to complement each other, you have to control the ministers.

Therefore, she chose a path of great cruelty, one that would have stained her and made her even resentful of the world, because the dynasty she had established had blocked all other paths.

There is no longer a normal path for her to choose. At the same time, as a generation of empresses who challenged the imperial power with their own strength and challenged the ethics of the program, in order to resist the public target, in the case of lack of skills,

She needs someone to be a shield for her, and she also needs someone to divert her gaze and pass on the target to avoid direct attacks, so that she has more room for maneuver in the sharp political whirlpool.

As a result, a group of characters known as cool officials were born, and the short-lived era of cool officials was formed.

These cool officials are instinctive to be loyal to the Martial Emperor, and although most of them do not understand the true purpose and intentions of their masters, they are able to know what the Martial Emperor needs them to do, and they are suspicious and use the power in their hands effectively.

They have the smell of a hound, the nature of a jackal, and they spy on the courtiers' every move.

They are loyal to their masters, because they can't do without the support of their masters, and they can't do without the favor of their masters.

Therefore, they can only do their own thing under the protection of their masters, and their behavior is only restricted by their masters; They had an instinctive psychological hatred of courtiers and even princely ministers, although their motives varied,

But the mentality is the same. They use murder to establish their authority, and they regard the number of killings as the only criterion for judging their dedication to serving their masters, and as the only means of competition among themselves.

They are constantly creating terror, and they are using terror to determine their status, exaggerate and magnify their role, and reflect their unique values and advantages.

The people who attracted the most attention and anger from the courtiers were Zhou Xing, Lai Junchen, as well as Fu Youyi, Qiu Shenxian, Suo Yuanli, Hou Sizhi and so on. At the beginning of the fourth year of the vertical arch, a slave accused Hao Xiangxian of rebellion, and the queen mother ordered Zhou Xing, the capital of Shangshu Province, to interrogate, and Zhou Xing sentenced Hao Xiangxian to exterminate the family.

Hao Xiangxian is the grandson of Prime Minister Hao Chujun, Hao Chujun opposed the regent of Empress Wu at the beginning, and now his grandson Hao Xiangxian is accused of rebellion.

What I didn't expect was. Before Hao Xiangxian was sentenced, he scolded the Queen Mother. This scolding. Zhou Xing, who was in charge of handling the case with full authority, also became famous for this.

The father and son of King Yue rebelled, and the case implicated other members of the Li clan. Empress Wu first ordered the imperial historian Su Jue to try the case of the rebellion of the kings of Han and Lu, but Su Jue never came to a conclusion; Empress Wu then enabled Zhou Xing again,

Zhou Xing lived up to the expectations of the Empress Wu, and soon made all the kings of Han and Lu confess their guilt and commit suicide by hanging themselves. Zhou Xing cleared the last obstacle for the Empress Wu's system, and his talent and efficiency in handling cases made the Empress Wu deeply satisfied.

The way of employing people after the martial arts is that, on the one hand, a large number of followers are used, and on the other hand, the cool officials are used without losing the opportunity, and the two are skillfully used.

Achieve mutual checks and balances. Empress Wu instinctively realized that in a world dominated by orthodoxy. Without followers, you cannot convince the world and control the world;

In the same way, if you want to rely on extraordinary actions to win the world, you must use extraordinary people to do extraordinary things, which requires the use of cool officials. The fact is that since the Qin and Han dynasties, the monarchs of successive dynasties have tacitly used cool officials,

In order to give full play to the role that the followers cannot play, and achieve their purpose of governing the country and safeguarding the monarch's power from both positive and negative aspects. Especially those monarchs with weak foundations. He spared no effort to use cool officials to consolidate the monarchy's power.

Even an emperor who had a lot of achievements like Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty used cool officials for the needs of his administration. At the beginning of his administration, in order to effectively crack down on local tyrants. In a situation where it is difficult to rely on followers to play a role,

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty used cool officials and achieved remarkable results. Although it is cruel to use cool officials. Its role is also limited, and both the user and the user will leave dirt and bad deeds in the long river of history.

It is despised by moral and political advocates, but it is indispensable in reality. Zhou Xing is not an idle person.

Although he came from a humble background. But he is very studious, especially since he was a child, he likes to study and study the law, and in the future, he is known for his deep understanding of the law of the code. During the reign of Gaozong, he was summoned as the commander of Heyang County.

In the court, his otherworldly appearance was appreciated by Gaozong; Later, he was not reused by the imperial court because of his non-imperial background. When Empress Wu was in power, Zhou Xing relied on his talent and diligence to rise to the capital of Shangshu Province.

However, the humiliating experience left him haunted. What really made Zhou Xing stand out was the Empress Wu of the Linzhao Dynasty. Empress Wu needs such talents, and needs talents like Zhou Xing who understand the rules and regulations and do not follow the rules. Empress Wu had no doubts about the authority she had established in the imperial court,

Her excellence lies in the fact that she sees clearly the indisputable fact that in a society that worships authority, all rules and regulations are subordinate to authority, and once authority is artificially strengthened,

The scales of decree inevitably tilt in favor of authority. Empress Wu has always held the control and initiative of the decree, and has penetrated her own will and intention into the implementation of the decree, so that the state's decree has become a tool to achieve her own goals.

Zhou Xing is the most perceptive of the mind of the Empress Wu. He is just a liuxin official, and his long-term lack of ambition has made him eager to get ahead, and he needs to rely on the trust of the Empress Wu to get out of the trough of his career.

He is proficient in the laws and regulations, and knows that in the special environment of the royal family, if he cannot reflect the will of the Empress Wu and serve the Empress Wu, he will achieve nothing. So, when he turned the law into a tool for people to use at will,

He has also turned himself into a tool for others to manipulate and use. Zhou Xing's success lies in the fact that he tampered with the law and appeared as a face to defend the law, using the law to cover people's eyes and ears to achieve ulterior purposes, and more importantly, all his actions have such a special background as the Empress Wu. The people he was confronted with,

He was already regarded as a condemned man, and when he raised the gavel of the law, his rights and wrongs had nothing to do with the law itself that he kept purporting. is to rely on the ability to turn his hands into clouds and cover his hands for rain,

He successively killed the royal family's Zewang Shangjin, Xu Wang Sujie, Princess Chang'an, as well as Prime Minister Wei Xuantong and the famous general Heizhi Changzhi on various charges... Zhou Xing's official position was also transferred to the Shaoqing of the Punishment and the Autumn Official. However, for such a moral, scheming person,

Empress Wu has always been wary of him, and other cool officials have restrained each other. When Zhou Xing's bad deeds aroused the resentment of the ministers, Empress Wu used the hands of others to dispose of him mercilessly. That's a story of "please enter the urn".

One twilight winter day, Zhou Xing received an invitation from Lai Junchen to invite him to a banquet, and he didn't mind and came to Lai Junchen's house as promised. During the banquet, Lai Junchen complained: "Now it is becoming more and more difficult to try the case.

The prisoners all said they had been wronged. Zhou Xingshen felt the same and said humorously: "That's the case." When they were first arrested, they all said that they were wronged, and after the execution, they all had nothing to say. "Stop for a moment. Coming forward,

"So. The key is still two words: torture. Lai Junchen is very familiar with torture, so he is not satisfied with this method: "But for some people, torture is not necessarily completely effective. ”

Zhou Xing disdainful: "That's because you didn't use the right way." Lai Junchen seemed to be thinking, and seemed to be asking for advice: "This person is proficient in the way of torture, and he also knows that once he confesses, he will definitely die.

What kind of means make him obediently obey the law? Zhou Xing saw the pot of charcoal burning in front of him. Immediately inspired, he slowly offered a trick: "This is simple.

Now it is winter, just find a big vat, burn the charcoal fire vigorously, burn the jar hot, and invite someone to sit in it for a while, and see how long he can endure it.

I guess by then, whatever you ask him to do, he'll be willing. Lai Junchen clapped his hands in surprise after hearing this, and shouted loudly: "It's really smart! Subsequently. Tell your men to do the same.

When the charcoal fire was lit and the jar was already red, Lai Junchen stood up and half-arched. He made an invitation to Zhou Xing with his hand: "Please Brother Zhou experience it yourself!" ”

When Zhou Xing heard this, he immediately understood everything, and the wine he drank quickly turned into a cold sweat and broke out from his forehead.

This former murderous guy. had to kneel at the feet of Lai Junchen. A piece of Zhou Xingmou's counter-confession was soon submitted to Emperor Wu's desk,

Zhou Xing came to the end of his life. Zhou Xing probably never even dreamed that he would be planted in the hands of his peers, confidants, and self-humble students. And it's a trap designed with your own wisdom!

Lai Junchen, this scoundrel from Luoyang City. was originally put on death row for committing a crime. Before his execution, he ingeniously proposed to see the Queen Mother. An unknown death row prisoner wants to see the Queen Mother, which is really whimsical. But Empress Wu has always had this curiosity, and she just fulfilled his wish.

It was such a chance that Empress Wu took a fancy to Lai Junchen. It turned out that Lai Junchen was not the obscene person he imagined, he was dignified, clever and eloquent, and he talked about prison and was the first to go.

Seeing that he was available, Empress Wu immediately pardoned him for his capital crimes, and made an exception to promote him to the rank of servant. Lai Junchen has been at the bottom of the society, has rich social experience, three religions and nine streams, and the left side door is everywhere and everywhere.

From death row prisoners to officials, Lai Junchen deeply felt the grace of the Queen Mother's opportunity, and the Queen Mother was the leader, always figuring out the Queen Mother's thoughts and peeking at the movements of the courtiers. In Lai Junchen's mind, there is only the Queen Mother and no one else,

Even if it is a relative of the emperor or even a close relative of the queen mother, as long as he is caught, it is difficult to escape. He wants to leave an iron-faced and selfless image to the Queen Mother, knowing that only in this way can he win the Queen Mother's greater trust.

He knows why the Queen Mother uses him, and he also understands what the Queen Mother needs him to do, what he can do, and the role positioning is accurate. Within the scope of his role, what the Queen Mother thought of or did not think of,

He has an account at any time, and when he encounters the prey that the Queen Mother needs, he will desperately bite and hold on, and there will never be a time when he misses, nor will he let the prey have any chance to resist.

He disdains the rules of the law, but is proficient in the method of extorting confessions by torture; He reduced the law to a single crime, which was treason. His book "Luo Weaving Sutra",

It is an operation book that flouts the law and turns it into a means of fabricating crimes. He also uses more clever means than torture to grasp the weakness of human nature and put people to death, and behind that handsome smiling face hides his beastly hideous face.

What Emperor Wu values is the lawlessness of Lai Junchen. She knew that she would have to deal with rebels who were old and sophisticated in the law, and that she would be put on the back foot if she used the normal process of law.

Emperor Wu knew very well that her weighing behavior was not only contrary to the ethics of Gangchang,

Moreover, contrary to normal rules and regulations, sometimes, only by bypassing legal procedures and using abnormal means can we remove obstacles for ourselves and not be tripped by obstacles. Behind the cool officials is a bloody massacre,

What has accumulated is growing hatred, and they want to purge not only those opponents of the Martial Emperor, but also those who oppose them.

As a result, Emperor Wu's reign left traces of blood on those who were openly opposed or sympathizers, and it also left a thick layer of mist in the entire court.

At this time, the secular value judgment of good and evil had lost its due role in Emperor Wu, and was replaced by a public killing that was crowned with the righteousness of the monarch without discernment. Although ruthless, it is inevitable.

When the hatred is concentrated on the cool officials, it is also more or less diverting attention for Emperor Wu, so that she can grasp more initiative in the competition in the court.

However, one of the simplest truths is the return of human nature and the turn of the human heart. This is the ultimate option to gain people's support and moral support.

In this regard, Emperor Wu has always kept a clear head and grasped the direction of progress freely, which is,

Evil deeds must be eradicated without mercy at the same time as they are caused. The fate of the cool officials is firmly in her hands,

will never be disturbed and disrupted by their evil deeds; When she manipulates and uses cool officials, she will mercilessly eradicate those who have a lot of grievances at the right time.

Use their blood to dispel grievances in exchange for hearts, including sacrificing to the unjusted dead; They are like this with the cool officials Suo Yuanli and Hou Sizhi, and they are still like this with Zhou Xing and Lai Junchen.

It's just that thinking of Lai Junchen's loyalty, Emperor Wu is somewhat reluctant; In fact, it was just a little personal emotion, and it did not affect her grasp of the overall situation.

This is the law of the court, the law of the king. When the edicts enumerate their sins, with the anger of Xue Cangsheng, Zhou Xing, Suo Yuanli and Lai Junchen, they may not understand until they die. (To be continued......)