Going to Beijing to save his father, all the powerful officials in the city are vying to be his fath

Zhao Liangchen's words made Zhao Gupan thoughtful. Seeing that she seemed to understand, Zhao Liangchen comforted her with a few more words and left. When Zhao Jian learned that Zhao Liangchen had asked the emperor for a cart of women's things, he didn't say much.

The next morning, Zhao Liangchen went to the palace early to take up his duty. As a member of the imperial guard, he had to arrive at the palace earlier than the ministers to change shifts. Today, he was on duty at the palace gate. When the palace gate opened, the ministers entered one after another. Normally, the ministers would not notice him, but today, the ministers passing by him would look at him intentionally or unintentionally. There was kindness, sarcasm, and meaning in their eyes.

Zhao Liangchen didn't react at all to the attention of so many people. He stared straight ahead until Prince Liang appeared and stopped in front of him. Then he nodded respectfully and saluted: "Your Highness Prince Liang."

King Liang also smiled and nodded in response, but the smile was only on his face, and there was no smile in his eyes.

When the court session began, Zhao Liangchen stood on duty outside the hall, listening to the ministers in the hall reporting some important matters.

Chang Shanqi, who had not attended court for a long time, attended court today. As soon as Liu Jin arrived at his house and announced the oral order yesterday, he asked someone to go to the Ministry of Revenue to retrieve the list of donations, copied it himself, and then took people out of the city to post it. Not only did he post the list of donations, he also spared no effort to curry favor with the emperor and the officials among the people.

When the victims saw so much silver, they felt completely relieved and became even more grateful to the emperor and the court.

Today, Chang Shanqi came to the court to report this matter. When he spoke, all the officials were silent. Although this was good for their reputation, there were still a large number of officials who were unhappy because not all officials donated voluntarily, and not all officials had the money to donate.

In order to support King Liang, the people of King Liang's faction may have donated a lot of money, but there were also many poor officials who could not come up with much money, especially the low-ranking officials. They had no choice but to donate because others donated money. In theory, the emperor would not blame them if they donated less money. At most, they would be embarrassed among the officials and let others know that they were poor. Otherwise, it would not be a problem. Most of the poor officials were upright officials who were not greedy, did not take advantage of others, and did not form cliques for personal gain. Of course, they would not care about their image among other officials.

But the situation is different when the list is announced to the victims. No matter whether you are rich or poor, in their eyes, all officials are rich. Some officials who donate a lot are good officials who love the people like their own children, while some officials who donate little are bad officials who donate little and do not care about the lives of the people and are stingy.

The reason why those officials were not corrupt was that they wanted to establish an image of integrity among the people, and to claim that they had integrity and were good officials. However, once this list was announced, their image suddenly became very bad.

They would not blame the emperor who issued this order. Some people knew that Zhao Liangchen entered the palace yesterday and thought that the idea was his, but most officials would not think that Zhao Liangchen had the brains to come up with this idea, nor did he have the ability to influence the emperor's decision.

Therefore, they took out their resentment on King Liang, who proposed to donate silver. It shows that you are rich. You donated hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. You got a good reputation, while we have to bear the bad reputation.

So after Chang Shanqi finished his report, those officials who had not donated much all stared at King Liang from behind.

Although King Liang did not look back, he could feel that the atmosphere today was different. Many officials had opinions about him. Although he still had a faint smile on his face, the fists clenched in his sleeves showed that he was on the verge of anger.

But something else happened that made him even angrier. A lot of his chess pieces were broken.

The Dali Temple Minister and Tong Zhongqian reported the case of embezzlement of disaster relief funds in turn. It was almost the same as Zhao Liangchen expected. Tong Zhongqian from the Ministry of Revenue pushed most of the responsibility onto Li Zheng because after the emperor summoned him into the palace yesterday, he went back and arrested Li Zheng and put him in the Ministry of Justice jail and tortured him.

Li Zhengke was not as tough as Su Jijing. It didn't take long for him to confess some things after being tortured. However, he did not admit that he had colluded with others to embezzle the disaster relief money. After all, the disaster relief money was intact when it left the Ministry of Revenue. He was just bribed to write an extra seal on the box. As for who bribed him, he said he didn't know, but he probably knew it was someone in the imperial guards.

Silver is sealed when it leaves the warehouse. Once the silver is replaced, the seal will inevitably be broken and discovered. However, if you prepare a complete seal in advance and a new seal is affixed after the silver is replaced, it will not be discovered.

Li Zheng only admitted that he gave the seal out of greed, but he didn't know what the seal was for.

Now the whole thing was pushed onto the Imperial Guards. After all, the silver was escorted by the Imperial Guards, there were not many officials from the Ministry of Revenue accompanying them, and the silver was also found in the Imperial Guards camp, so the Imperial Guards were the most suspected.

Su Jijing was only guilty of negligence. After all, Li Zhengduo opened the seal, and he, as the direct manager of the Ministry of Revenue, did not even notice it.

Yesterday, the Chief Justice of the Dali Temple also interrogated more than a dozen imperial guards, including the deputy commander, according to the emperor's order. No one knows how he conducted the interrogation, and no one knows whether those imperial guards were instructed by others or knew they could not escape, so they confessed their crimes very straightforwardly. The deputy commander also took all the responsibility on himself, saying that he just wanted to embezzle hundreds of thousands of disaster relief funds.

It was he who ordered the escorting imperial guards to steal the silver, and it was he who ordered people to hide the silver in the imperial guards camp. He bribed the runners of the Ministry of Justice to steal the silver from Zhao Kuo and others, but he refused to admit that he had framed Su Jijing, and only said that he, Zhao Kuo, did it himself and he didn't know about it. However, Zhao Kuo is dead and there is no evidence. No one knows why Zhao Kuo framed Su Jijing and how he came up with the false evidence.

The case was considered closed at this point. For some reason, no one raised any objections. Perhaps no one wanted the case to be investigated endlessly.

Finally, the emperor ordered the execution of Li Zheng, the deputy commander, the dozen or so imperial guards, and the remaining imperial guards held in the Ministry of Justice. In order to appease the families behind the imperial guards, except for the imperial guards who escaped like Zhao Kuo, the families of others would not be implicated.

Su Jijing was removed from the post of Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue due to negligence and demoted. As for which official position he would be demoted to, the Ministry of Personnel and several regent ministers would have to discuss and see which position was vacant.

Jin Tong was also punished for his negligence. Originally, they wanted to demote him, but after he was demoted, there was no suitable candidate to serve as the commander of the imperial guards, so he had to take over temporarily and was punished with three years of service. If there was a suitable candidate in the future or if he performed poorly, he would be replaced.

After the case of the disaster relief silver was closed, some officials pointed out that the reason the case was solved so quickly was entirely due to Zhao Liangchen finding Zhao Kuo and others and the disaster relief silver. He made the greatest contribution and deserved a reward.

The emperor stared at the official meaningfully and asked, "Then, my dear minister, how do you think I should reward him?"

The official said, "Your Majesty, this time the Imperial Guards have encountered such a serious incident, which shows that they have neglected management. Commander Jin has been punished, and we are also missing a deputy commander. The entire Imperial Guards have been severely damaged. This will inevitably affect the security of Shangjing City and the court. The position of deputy commander cannot remain vacant. We should select someone who is capable and familiar with the Imperial Guards as soon as possible.

"I believe Zhao Du Yu Hou is very suitable for this position. First, his ancestors all came from the Imperial Guard, so he has a better understanding of the Imperial Guard. Second, he is young, promising, capable, and responsible, making him the perfect choice for deputy commander."

Although the emperor had prepared himself mentally after what Zhao Liangchen said yesterday, his heart still sank when he saw someone really stand up to recommend Zhao Liangchen. He felt that it was a joke for him to sit on the throne.

The government cannot make decisions on its own, and officials form cliques for personal gain. He doesn't even know who these officials below him are loyal to.

The person who spoke was from the Ministry of Personnel, which meant that the Ministry of Personnel was already under the control of someone else. The Ministry of Revenue had lost its two assistant ministers and was also in danger. The most important departments were not in their own hands, and the emperor didn't even know whose emperor he was.

He stared at the official for a moment, taking it to heart. Then he looked at the other officials and asked, "What do you think, my dear ministers?"