The film and television world begins with the battle for the throne in Kowloon

Chapter 710 Case Conclusion (Part )

"Your Highness, we now fully understand this incident. The Crown Prince is not only innocent this time, but has actually done something meritorious."

Seeing Li Ke's unhappy look, Quan Wanji said, "However, we have gained a lot from this incident. After today's court meeting, the King of Wei, the competitor who has been hiding behind the scenes, couldn't help but jump out."

"And the King of Qi, who had been guarding Shandong and watching the fire from the other side, was also exposed."

"Before, the prince had always been competing with the crown prince. The emperor and all the civil and military officials in the court knew about it, but the king of Wei and the king of Qi were quietly hiding in the dark, waiting for an opportunity to make a move, sitting on the mountain and watching the tigers fight. After this time, they also jumped out into the open. From now on, it will not be two heroes standing side by side, but four princes competing for the throne."

"If we can expose their intentions to the emperor, the emperor and the court officials will no longer focus only on the prince. With their protection, the prince can temporarily avoid the limelight, accumulate strength, and wait for the right opportunity to act."

Chai Zhewei also agreed at this time: "Yes, Prince, you have been too aggressive before, which has caused the emperor and the Eastern Palace to be wary. I also think that you should temporarily stop and conserve your energy, let the King of Wei and the King of Qi fight against the Eastern Palace, and you sit on the sidelines and watch calmly."

Chai Zhewei knew that the attitude of the senior military officials, including his father, towards the prince had changed. In addition, the prince had raised so much military funds for the emperor. With the resources, the campaign against the Turks could be launched immediately.

It can be said that all the high-ranking military officials have benefited from the crown prince. The crown prince's position at this time is unprecedentedly stable, and Li Ke is his good friend. In this environment, it would be disastrous to confront the crown prince.

Seeing that his two important arms shared the same opinion, Li Ke nodded perfunctorily, thinking that both Cen Wenben and Concubine Yang had advised him to keep a low profile and not to show off. He felt ashamed when he thought that he had been defeated by the prince, whom he had always looked down upon.

At this time, the fast horses from the Prince of Qi's Mansion had just driven out of Chang'an City and headed towards Tongguan, waiting for Liang Sijin to return to the Prince of Qi's Mansion.

After a while, several more fast horses left the city and headed towards Shandong to deliver the letter.

Seven days later, in Chengqing Hall of Taiji Palace, Wei Zheng came to meet Li Shimin with a stack of information and reported the details of the investigation.

After several days of hard work, Li Yan revealed all the inside information of the Flying Tiger Army case to Wei Zheng. Faced with a large amount of facts and evidence, Wei Zheng confessed everything without encountering any stubborn resistance.

This was the largest corruption case since the founding of the Tang Dynasty. It involved nearly 10,000 people and nearly 20 million strings of cash, involving countless princes and nobles in Chang'an City. However, it was concluded in just seven days with the help of only two important officials. It was truly incredible.

In fact, this was also expected. Because there were too many forces and people involved, Li Shimin did not mobilize too many people. He just let Wei Zheng go and deal with it alone, and Hou Junji was just there to maintain order.

Even the Dali Temple and the Ministry of Justice, two departments that usually get involved in handling important cases, were not allowed to interfere. This was to reduce the importance of the case to the lowest level so as not to cause resistance and rebellion from the aristocratic families in the court.

The law does not hold everyone responsible, and this is always the case.

Li Shimin just wanted the money. If the forces behind those involved in the case united and rose up against him, it would be very troublesome.

Therefore, from the beginning, Wei Zheng was instructed to close the case in a short period of time, and no major punishment measures were taken. Even people like Hu Lixian and Zhou Yande were only required to hand over the stolen money, tell the whole truth, and then be kicked out of the Flying Tigers.

There was no record made in their files, so it would not affect their ability to continue to "serve the court" in the future.

"Your Majesty, I have fulfilled my mission and have thoroughly investigated all the incidents within the Flying Tiger Army."

Wei Zheng presented a memorial to the emperor, saying, "After investigation, it was found that Hu Lixian, Zhou Yande, and Liang Sijin were indeed instructed by the King of Shu, the King of Wei, and the King of Qi. They spent a huge amount of money to join the Flying Tiger Army and disrupted the training of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"The three of them, following the orders of the kings behind them, wantonly sold out the positions of their subordinate officers at all levels to seek benefits, and actively violated military discipline, allowing their subordinate officers to gamble, drink and have fun in the barracks, causing the Flying Tiger Army's military discipline to be lax and rotten."

"And Luo Ensheng is the son-in-law of Xue Guogong's eldest grandson Shunde. He just wants to seek a position."

"Although Liu Rengui was recommended by the King of Lu, he did not give any money, and he was previously a General of the Central Army in the Sixteen Guards, so he was not promoted beyond the quota. In the Five Guards of the Flying Tiger Army, the guards he belonged to carefully selected soldiers and trained them strictly in accordance with the requirements of the court. Among the two thousand people under him, no one was found to have entered by transferring benefits."

After that, Wei Zheng attached a thick stack of banknotes: "All the money collected by those people is 5.89 million strings of cash, not a penny less. All of it is here, please take a look, Your Majesty."

"According to the emperor's request, all the money will be donated, and all the officers involved will sign the certification documents. Except for the rear guard officers, all the other four guards above the position of fire chief will be expelled from the Flying Tiger Army. The ordinary soldiers will remain in the Flying Tiger Army. Please give your instructions, Your Majesty."

Ordinary soldiers make up the largest group of people in the Flying Tiger Army. If all of them are fired, then the hundreds of strings of cash they paid in order to join the Flying Tiger Army will have to be returned. Otherwise, it may cause a big chaos.

Those soldiers didn't care about all that. They only knew that they paid so much money in order to serve in the Flying Tiger Army, the vanguard of the Northern Expedition, and kill the enemy and make merit. They would not let the court swallow up their money.

If they were driven out like this, they would definitely not do it. For Li Shimin, this useless army still had to exist to cover up the real Flying Tiger Army. Anyway, now that he had so much money, it was nothing more than buying a few more horses. When it came time to fight the Turks in the north, if those people still made trouble, they could just be transferred to the front line.

Those people had not undergone rigorous military training and their military discipline was poor. When they really went to the battlefield, they were thrown around in a huge meat grinder.

I'm afraid that after two battles, there won't be much left. Using the Turks, the problem can be easily solved without any sequelae.

"Well, Xuancheng did a good job!"

Li Shimin sat behind the desk and took the thick stack of silver bills with a satisfied look on his face. He was extremely satisfied. Adding the 13 million silver bills handed over by the prince some time ago, the total amount was 18.89 million silver bills, which accounted for more than half of the annual income of the national treasury.

It was more than three times the five or six million strings of cash that he had saved by living frugally in the three years since he ascended the throne.

As expected, a man cannot become rich without unexpected wealth, and a horse cannot become fat without night grass. After becoming the emperor, everything he said and did had to follow rules, so that he was restricted and constrained everywhere. Even as an emperor, he saved up more money for three years, but did not make as much as the prince did in one go.

As Sun Tzu's Art of War says, "Use the normal to unite and the unusual to win," it is indeed true.

To accomplish great things, one must still achieve victory by surprise. The princes are in a position of competition. In order to please their father, the emperor, they rack their brains and try their best to make progress. But in the end, who is the beneficiary? It's the emperor himself who is above him.

It seems that the ministers want to fight, and the princes also want to fight.

It was through their crazy games in different fields that they were able to obtain so many benefits, which further strengthened Li Shimin's determination to continue guiding his sons in the fight for the throne.

Although he was very satisfied with the Crown Prince, it did not affect his tendency to suppress the Crown Prince on the surface and give other princes some opportunities and temptations, so that they would contribute their strength to him like a donkey pulling a mill.

It can also hone the prince's abilities, which is the best of both worlds. Why not do it?

Seeing the thick stack of banknotes on the table, Li Shimin became excited. It was nearly 20 million strings of cash. With this money, he could immediately deploy various subordinates for the Northern Expedition in advance. Moreover, a few days ago, Hou Junji came to him to plead for the prince, and he had already taken on the task of secretly training the Flying Tiger Army.

All my plans have been fulfilled, it's time to end this farce!

Thinking of this, Li Shimin was in a very happy mood. He could not suppress his inner joy. He stood up from behind the desk and personally helped Wei Zheng up: "Xuancheng, you also know that I can't do anything about this matter."

"Let's put aside our last proposal to raise taxes on the people. The Tang Dynasty was founded not long ago, and there have been disasters for three consecutive years since I ascended the throne. The people's lives are already difficult enough. If it is not a last resort, how can I not feel sorry for them? They are all my children!"

What else could Wei Zheng say? At least the people were not harmed. He personally examined the soldiers and knew that it cost hundreds of strings of cash to enter the Flying Tiger Army, not to mention those who held military posts, who would spend tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of strings of cash.

They were all wealthy families, and there was not a single ordinary person. Wei Zheng had no psychological burden at all about the emperor taking advantage of them.

"Your Majesty, this is the only solution. Those people are very wealthy, and it is only right for them to contribute a little to the Tang Dynasty."

Wei Zheng reminded them sternly, "Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven, and the Crown Prince is the heir to the throne. Your words and deeds should be a model for the world and the people. After all, such things are not fair and just. Both Your Majesty and the Crown Prince should learn from their mistakes and never do it again."

"In the final analysis, this is overdrawing your majesty's credibility among the monarch and his subjects. If this happens too often, the royal family will lose its dignity among the civil and military officials."

Hearing Wei Zheng start to criticize him again, Li Shimin felt annoyed, but seeing that Wei Zheng had done a great thing for him, he stopped arguing with him. Moreover, this time he actually took advantage of Wei Zheng's upright image in the minds of the court officials.

After all, Wei Zheng has always been upright in handling cases, and this time he took a lot of responsibility in order to protect himself.

"Yes, that's right, my dear minister. The prince really went too far this time. I want to criticize him and this will not happen again."

"."

When Wei Zheng saw Li Shimin's perfunctory attitude, he sighed and thought, forget it, the emperor is different from a loyal minister after all.

If he really does everything aboveboard, with an open mind, and can get everything on the table, then he shouldn't be the emperor. The ministers in the court are not easy to deal with, and if you don't have some skills, you can't control them. You'd better do your own job well!

(End of this chapter)