Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 29: Colluding with the enemy and betraying the country!
Zhu Youjian felt neither joy nor anger.

He possessed the utmost calm rationality of a highly skilled surgeon who, after a long period of observation, finally found the first lesion to be operated on.

Zhu Youjian slowly raised his head, his gaze falling on the old face kneeling below, a face filled with expectation and trepidation.

He certainly knew what Wei Zhongxian was thinking at that moment.

Arrest people, interrogate them, use torture to extract confessions, and then endlessly expand the case to implicate more court officials.

This was Wei Zhongxian's most proficient tactic, and also his most beloved game.

Because this could bring him supreme power, massive wealth, and even more importantly, the deep-seated fear of him from all the officials in the court!
But that was not what Zhu Youjian wanted.

If his goal is merely to punish a few audacious businessmen, or to take down a few corrupt officials who secretly collude with businessmen, then his vision is far too narrow.

Zhu Youjian stood up from the dragon throne, which symbolized the highest power in the world, and once again walked to the map that almost occupied the entire wall.

"Wei Zhongxian".

"The old slave is here."

"What do you think Fan Yongdou was trying to achieve by going to such lengths and risking the confiscation of his family's property to gather intelligence on the Liaodong frontier?"

The emperor's voice was very soft and faint, yet it struck Wei Zhongxian's heart like an invisible hammer.

Wei Zhongxian was taken aback by the question, and almost instinctively answered according to his most logical deduction: "Your Majesty, this old servant believes that he is naturally... in order to collude with certain treacherous officials in the court to obtain intelligence on the transportation of military rations in advance, and then hoard them for speculation, reselling them at high prices to make an astonishing profit..."

In his view, this was the limit of what a businessman could achieve in terms of audacity.

However, the emperor let out a barely audible laugh.

There was no warmth in that laughter; instead, it was filled with a chilling sarcasm that seemed capable of freezing a person.

"Making exorbitant profits?"

Zhu Youjian slowly turned around, his deep eyes fixed firmly on Wei Zhongxian. His gaze was so sharp that it seemed to penetrate flesh and reach the depths of the soul, making Wei Zhongxian feel that all the filth and scheming in his heart were exposed under that gaze.

“I’m telling you, he’s not doing this for profit.”

"He is... colluding with the enemy and betraying his country!"

"boom--"

The four words "treason and collusion with the enemy" were like a purple divine thunderbolt descending from the heavens, striking Wei Zhongxian squarely on the top of his head!
His mind went completely blank for a moment.

He was completely stunned, utterly stunned.

In an instant, Wei Zhongxian's old face, covered with the wrinkles of time, lost all color, becoming as pale and transparent as the Xuan paper pasted on the window. His body began to tremble violently and uncontrollably, as if he had an epileptic seizure.

Colluding with the enemy... Selling out one's country?
Wei Zhongxian held immense power in the court. He murdered loyal officials, embezzled public funds, and committed countless evil deeds. He even considered himself the worst and most wicked person in the world in the dead of night.

However, the words "treason and collusion with the enemy" were something he dared not even dream of!
That's an unforgivable crime of digging up one's own ancestral graves!

That would mean being executed by slow slicing, having one's bones crushed and ashes scattered, and being nailed to the pillar of shame in history books to be infamous for ten thousand years!
A businessman... how dare he?!

This crime was completely beyond Wei Zhongxian's comprehension.

Wei Zhongxian suddenly raised his head, staring directly at the emperor for the first time in such a discomposure. His voice became hoarse and shrill due to extreme shock and disbelief, and even became somewhat distorted.

"Your Majesty... Is... Is this really true?! How dare Fan Yongdou... How could he?!"

Zhu Youjian did not answer his question directly, but stared at him with an extremely cold gaze, and then continued in an unquestionable tone: "Therefore, I do not want you to send someone to arrest him now."

His voice became exceptionally clear and cold, each word like a piece of ice carved from a millennia-old glacier, carrying a chilling edge.

"I'll say it again, I don't want to alert the enemy."

"What I want is not a merchant's confession, nor the heads of a few corrupt officials in the court. Such things are too cheap and meaningless to me."

"What I want is an ironclad chain of evidence against them for treason, so airtight that no one in the world can refute it!"

"Grain, ironware, cotton cloth, salt, tea... even gunpowder, sulfur, rhubarb, which are strictly controlled by our Great Ming... all the goods that flow into the Later Jin through their trade routes, I want you to investigate them thoroughly!"

"Where did these things come from? What was the exact quantity of each transaction? Which secret trade routes did they use to transport them? Which passes and garrisons did they pass through along the way? Who opened the doors for them at these passes and garrisons? What were the specific times and locations of each transaction, and who were the people in charge of the Later Jin who made contact with them?"

"This is a net."

Zhu Youjian tapped his finger heavily on the map, on the vast land connecting Shanxi and Liaodong, producing a dull sound.

"A vast web of treason stretches from Datong Prefecture in Shanxi all the way to Shengjing City in Liaodong, and its roots have even penetrated deep into the court of my Great Ming Dynasty!"

"I now require you to draw out every single node and every single thread of this net for me, without missing a single detail!"

……

Dead silence.

Inside the main hall, a deathly silence fell, as if even time itself had frozen.

Wei Zhongxian's entire body seemed to have been emptied of its soul, turning him into a lifeless clay puppet.

His mind was in a whirl, as if a million bells were ringing at the same time.

Every word the emperor had just spoken was like a branding iron heated red-hot in a raging fire, branding itself fiercely into his mind with scorching heat. Every stroke was so clear that it made him tremble.

He was shocked.

He was completely overwhelmed by an unprecedented shock that utterly overturned his decades of life experience and understanding of power struggles.

He controlled the Eastern Depot, monitoring the entire country, with his henchmen spread throughout the court and the countryside!

He always believed that no dirty or sordid thing that happened in any dark corner of the Ming Dynasty could escape his eyes and ears.

But only today, at this very moment, did he realize with horror that, beyond his supposedly all-knowing vision, there was a chain of treason that could drag the entire Ming Dynasty, already in turmoil, into an abyss of no return!

An uncontrollable surge of anger welled up in his chest.

This is a genuine anger that comes from the bottom of one's heart, without any acting involved.

Wei Zhongxian was power-hungry, a fact he never denied.

But he knew better than anyone that all his wealth and glory were tied to the Ming Dynasty and to the Zhu family's rule.

He is like the largest and most luxuriant parasitic vine on this towering tree; he needs the tree to live in order to continuously absorb nutrients!
These so-called Shanxi merchants, these giants of the nation, are digging up the roots of this great tree!
What terrified him the most, what bewildered him, and what even made his soul tremble, came from the young emperor himself on the throne!

Because the unknown is always the most frightening thing—

How did the emperor find out about this?
(End of this chapter)