In my previous life, I killed my whole family. In my next life, I killed the royal family.

Since the death of the third prince, the crown prince has sent a lot of people to keep an eye on the second prince.

He knew very well that the biggest stumbling block to his promotion was none other than the Second Prince. However, recently the Crown Prince heard from his subordinates about something that made him feel bad.

"Your Highness, I have heard a piece of news. The Second Imperial Concubine set up a trap to marry Miss Qi to her brother Li Zhi, but she didn't expect that Princess Yong'an would accidentally fall into the trap."

"What?" The prince's eyes widened in surprise. He could never have imagined that there was such a mystery behind this matter. "So this is why Yong'an was promised to Li Zhi!" The prince suddenly realized.

The Eastern Palace did not send anyone to attend the Second Imperial Concubine's birthday banquet, and was unable to get the news of what happened in the Second Imperial Palace in time.

When the emperor suddenly granted the prince a marriage with Yong'an, the prince learned the reason from his subordinates.

At this moment, the Crown Prince became more and more wary of the Second Prince's ambition. He knew very well that if he allowed the Second Prince to continue to develop, his position would be threatened. He secretly made up his mind to be more careful to prevent the Qi Mansion from getting too close to the Second Prince.

The prince had always been dissatisfied with the Qi Palace. Now that he knew about this, he stepped up his surveillance of the Qi Palace.

He secretly thought: "If I find anything unusual in the Qi Mansion, I will get rid of them immediately. I will never let them become an obstacle to my advancement!"

The prince sent his men to keep a close eye not only on the second prince, but also on the people in the Qi Mansion.

"If they have any problem, please report to me immediately."

On this day, the prince's guard Dingfu came back to report, "Your Highness, I followed Qi Yuan's motorcade and was surprised to find that the silver that the Ministry of Revenue returned to the Western Region merchants was actually in a deserted courtyard. It was shabby and there was no one around. It was very strange."

"Why don't you go in and take a look?" the prince asked dissatisfiedly.

"What if there is a trap?" Ding Fu blinked his eyes and found an excuse, "If I get caught, it's a small matter, but if it ruins your Highness's business, that would be a big deal."

"Yeah, that's right." The prince nodded.

The prince had always been curious about the man from the Western Regions who suddenly took out one million taels of silver to help Qi Ze get promoted.

He wanted to find out who was in the Western Regions who lent Qi Ze one million taels of silver and helped him get promoted.

"What is the relationship between these people from the Western Regions and the Qi Palace?

He also wanted to find out, "Where did the one million taels of silver that General Hu was exchanged for go?"

When the prince heard Dingfu's report, his eyes showed a ruthless murderous intent, like a wolf seeing its prey. He secretly said, "If I know who helped Qi Zesheng become the Shangshu, I will kill him."

Dingfu suggested, "Your Highness, why don't we go to that place and take a look."

The prince had the same idea, so he told Dingfu, "Tell the guards that I'm going hunting in the suburbs. Take a team of people to quietly escort me to the small courtyard and arrest the man and the silver."

He also promised, "If you catch the person, you will be rewarded. If you get the silver, you will get a share."

"As you command, Your Highness." Dingfu was secretly delighted. He immediately led a team of people to escort His Highness the Crown Prince out of the city to hunt.

General Hu has been extremely worried since he lost the silver. The tax silver that was exchanged was of great importance. If he could not find it, he and his family would face a catastrophe. Therefore, he sent people to inquire around, trying to find some clues about the lost silver.

In order to encourage everyone to actively look for clues, General Hu offered a reward: "If anyone can provide accurate clues and help find the silver, the reward will be one thousand taels of silver!" This reward was put together by General Hu and his men. They hoped to attract more people to provide clues in this way.

It's been nearly a month since I sent the message, but not a single clue has been provided.

General Hu also actively led his men to look around, following General Zuo's orders and searching the valley, but to no avail.

If the lost silver is not found, General Hu and his family will be in dire straits. Therefore, General Hu said to his men: "If anyone can provide me with a piece of information related to the silver, whether it is true or false, I will reward you with one or two taels of silver!"

General Hu knew that only by casting a wide net could he filter out valuable information from numerous clues. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts, he had made no progress so far.

On this day, General Hu was discussing with several of his confidants in his tent how to find tax silver, when suddenly a personal soldier came in and reported that Hu Er wanted to see him.

Hu Er is General Hu's distant cousin and also his subordinate.

General Hu frowned and waved his hand impatiently to let Hu Er in. As soon as Hu Er entered the tent, he saluted General Hu respectfully and reported in a low voice: "General, today Minister Qi sent someone to return one million taels of silver to the people in the Western Regions."

Hearing this news, General Hu was pleasantly surprised and said quickly, "Oh, that's great! Minister Qi is such a good man! Thanks to Minister Qi's good words, we have a chance to survive."

Hu Er nodded repeatedly and agreed, "Yes, the general is right. Minister Qi is indeed a good man. If he hadn't pleaded for us in front of the emperor this time, I'm afraid our Hu family would have been executed by the emperor long ago."

General Hu nodded with deep emotion, then turned to ask Hu Er: "So what's the situation now?"

Hu Er hesitated for a moment, but decided to tell the truth: "I was outside the city gate and saw several people following the convoy, so I followed them."

General Hu's face darkened after hearing this, and he waved his hands unhappily, saying, "Nonsense! Minister Qi is our benefactor, you shouldn't follow those convoys. Doing so will make people misunderstand that I don't trust Minister Qi, don't make this mistake again in the future."

Hu Er was so frightened that he immediately bowed his head and admitted his mistake, saying over and over again: "I know I was wrong, and I will never dare to do it again..."

He explained in a low voice, "I followed the convoy that was delivering silver to the Qi Mansion because I thought that if someone came to rob the silver again, maybe I could catch the bandit who robbed our tax silver."

"Forget it this time." General Hu also thought it made sense. He waved his hand, signaling Hu Er not to continue, and then asked: "What happened next? Did anything happen?"

Hu Er raised his head and answered carefully, "I followed the caravan all the way to the outside of the city and found that there were several men following the caravan. But these men looked a little strange and didn't seem to be ordinary people."

General Hu asked in confusion: "Oh? Why do you say that? Is there anything special about them?"

Hu Er lowered his voice and said, "I think these soldiers may have been sent by the Crown Prince and the Second Prince."

General Hu was shocked and asked hurriedly, "How do you know? Do you have any evidence?"

Hu Er quickly explained, "I went back to the city gate and stood outside waiting. I saw several familiar faces coming one after another. They were the guards of the Crown Prince and the Second Prince. They were all dressed in civilian clothes and obviously didn't want to be discovered. So I guessed that they might be secretly following the Qi Mansion and monitoring the whereabouts of the silver."

General Hu pondered for a moment, then said: "It seems that this matter is not that simple. We must deal with it carefully."

Hu Er said: "General, if they follow us secretly, I'm afraid something might happen."

He speculated quietly: "Maybe they will send someone to steal the silver and then put the blame on the Qi family. That would be a big trouble."

The soldiers and generals had private rumors that the Crown Prince and the Second Prince were not on good terms with the Qi Palace.

General Hu thought to himself that it made sense. If these two princes sent people to take away the one million taels of silver returned by the Qi Mansion, then Minister Qi would be implicated.

"I can't be a heartless person!"

General Hu thought for a moment and said, "I'll take some people to check it out."

"Yes, General." Hu Er said.