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

Chapter 709 Case Conclusion (Part )

While Li Tai and Du Chuke were discussing the court meeting, Li Ke and Quan Wanji from the Shu Palace were also in urgent consultation to deal with the current crisis.

The chaotic fight in Taiji Hall today was so unexpected and passive that it pushed both Li Ke and Li Tai to the forefront. It was clearly an accountability fight against corruption within the Flying Tigers, but it was led to a fight for succession among the sons of the army by the chaotic crowd.

Although what those people said were what Li Ke and Li Tai were thinking.

But one must eat one bite at a time and walk one step at a time. Now the internal situation of the Flying Tiger Army has not been revealed. It is still uncertain whether the prince is involved and whether he can get away successfully.

According to the discussion between Li Ke and Quan Wanji, the operation of the whole incident should be exposed from the bottom first. The court should file a case and send important officials to investigate. If the imperial envoy can find out the matter, it would be the best. If not, the King of Shu and the King of Wei will throw out Hu Lixian and Zhou Yande, and implicate Wang Xuance, the proofreader of the Eastern Palace, in the matter of making a lot of money by raising military funds.

Finally, Wang Xuance was imprisoned and the prince was pried out of his mouth.

If everything went well, the next step would be to hold the crown prince accountable and remove him from office. After the crown prince was driven out of the East Palace, they would find a suitable opportunity to use an inconspicuous official of the seventh or eighth rank to tentatively submit a petition to appoint another crown prince, testing Li Shimin's attitude.

If Li Shimin did not resist, and then colluded with the ministers to recommend a new candidate for the crown prince, the King of Shu and the King of Wei would compete with each other.

This series of operations would probably last for several months and could not be rushed, but now, within a short period of less than an hour, everything was revealed, and all previous plans were messed up.

There were obviously a group of people taking advantage of the situation in the court today. The matter of the Flying Tiger Army had not been confirmed yet, but the intentions of several princes were immediately exposed. In order to compete for the new crown prince, people from several parties even fought directly in the court.

Damn, the old prince hasn’t been deposed yet?

Everybody was competing for the new crown prince, and their behavior was so ugly that all the secret conflicts that were previously hidden from everyone were suddenly exposed.

Li Ke urgently called over another trusted confidant, Chai Zhewei, the General of the Left Guard and the General of the Yifu Palace. The three of them discussed and thought of a solution in the waterside pavilion of the Prince of Shu's Palace.

Li Ke asked anxiously, "Zhewei, you are the General of the Left Guard, and the Western Inner Courtyard is also your base. Can you think of a way to meet Hu Lixian and find out what's going on with Wei Zheng in there?"

"There's nothing we can do, Your Highness. The Flying Tiger Army is a separate district!"

Chai Zhewei said helplessly: "The imperial guards of the Western Inner Courtyard are guarding the periphery. Hou Junji's men have the imperial decree, and the Flying Tigers are not allowed to approach. I tried to gather a group of senior generals this afternoon and went there in the name of visiting Hou Junji, but they were directly blocked and didn't even meet Hou Junji."

"Alas, I don't know what happened in the court today. It suddenly got out of control. It seems that an unknown force got involved. Could it be that Zhangsun Wuji secretly came back?"

Seeing that he could not get any information from Chai Zhe, Li Ke turned to Quan Wanji for help: "Wanji, what do you think?"

Li Ke still believed in Quan Wanji's wisdom. Thinking of Li Shimin's cold gaze in the court today, Li Ke was still frightened.

"Your Highness, I am a humble official. I was just on duty in the square outside. I don't know the details of what happened in the palace. But after listening to what you said about the situation in the court, if my guess is correct, I'm afraid he was the one who took action?"

"Who, are you talking about Changsun Wuji?"

Quan Wanji shook his head, looking like he was planning something. "Neither Changsun Wuji nor the Crown Prince have that much power, and they dare not disrupt the grand court meeting in the Taiji Hall. Today's chaos can only mean that the Emperor himself took action."

"call"

Li Ke looked incredulous: "Wan Ji, are you saying that the emperor personally came to protect the prince?"

"No, Your Highness, did you misunderstand me?"

Quan Wanji smiled slightly and said meaningfully: "We were afraid that the prince's trap was not big enough, so we stuffed money into it. Our Shu Palace alone invested one million strings of cash in the Flying Tiger Army. What about the other princes, the King of Wei and the King of Qi?"

"There are even civil and military officials in the court, as well as aristocratic families. If everyone has the same idea, then the Flying Tiger Army has now become a silver vault, with the wealth inside simply piling up like a mountain. With so much money, how can the emperor not be tempted?"

"Don't forget, the emperor has been worried about the northern expedition against the Turks. What is he worried about? Is it the lack of independent generals? Or the lack of brave soldiers?"

"Neither. What we lack is a huge amount of military supplies and logistical support. If we had money and food, we wouldn't have to wait and could launch a campaign against the Turks right away. And now the Flying Tiger Army has gathered so much money. If Your Majesty collects this money, all problems will be solved." Uh, Quan Wanji's high-level analysis directly hit the biggest contradiction in the court. Li Ke was dumbfounded?

Thinking from another angle, if he were the emperor, he would definitely not let go of such a huge sum of money. Li Ke's brain was suddenly not enough. If Li Shimin himself went down, who would be his opponent? The whole court was either his sons or his ministers, and he would definitely lose!

What Li Ke is most concerned about now is not the loss of money and military power, but whether something will happen to the prince.

At this time, the housekeeper came to report that Hu Lixian wanted to see him.
The three of them were stunned immediately. How could Hu Lixian come out under such circumstances?
"Could it be that he gave His Highness away, so Hou Junji came to arrest him?" Chai Zhewei asked tentatively.

Li Ke was suddenly frightened. If the things he instructed Hu Lixian to do were really exposed, he would be in trouble.

The butler quickly shook his head and said, "He is just one person, and he is wearing ordinary clothes. There are no soldiers or strangers following him."

"Hurry, let him in." Li Ke ordered hurriedly.

After a while, Hu Lixian, who was alone, came to the group with a gloomy look. Before he could speak, Quan Wanji asked, "Lixian, what happened? Why are you here? Shouldn't you be in the Flying Tiger Army dealing with Wei Zheng?"

"Alas, my Lord, it's all over."

Hu Lixian sighed and recounted the whole scene of his meeting with Wei Zheng. Finally, he said in a lost voice, "I didn't expect that it was true that the crown prince instructed Wang Xuance to raise military funds. The East Palace did not embezzle a single cent. All the collected money was handed over to the emperor."

"Not only was the one million strings of cash that Your Highness gave me discovered, but I was also found to have sold military positions behind the back of Your Highness the Crown Prince. All my money was confiscated. If it weren't for the fact that Lord Wei donated all the money to charity because of the serious consequences, I'm afraid not only would I be unforgivable, but Your Highness would also be unable to get away with it."

Li Ke was stunned, his face turned red and blue, he thought for a long time, and finally sighed dejectedly, he didn't expect that with so much money, the prince really was not tempted at all.

If that is the case, then this incident cannot be blamed on the prince.

Instead, his conspiracy to disrupt the government, disrupt the Flying Tiger Army, and attempt to frame the prince was discovered by the emperor. Moreover, he lost millions of family wealth that he had accumulated with great effort over the years. Thinking of this, Li Ke felt like he had lost his wife and his army, and he was so angry that he almost vomited blood.

"By the way, Lixian, the memorial you saw might be that the prince saw the situation was not good and was afraid of getting into trouble, so he took the initiative to hand over the money. Doesn't the emperor see this?" Li Ke asked unwillingly.

"Your Highness, stop deceiving yourself!"

Quan Wanji said regretfully: "What do you mean the prince saw a bad opportunity? It's obvious that the emperor and the prince used the formation of the Flying Tiger Army to set a trap from the beginning, mainly to raise military funds for the court's northern expedition."

"The Crown Prince has been acting under the Emperor's orders from the beginning to the end, and now is the time for the Emperor to close the net. We have all been fooled by the Emperor."

Li Ke sat down on the chair in a daze. After Quan Wanji's reminder, Li Ke finally realized that the cowardly prince was simply incapable of controlling such a big plate. If it weren't for Li Shimin's operation behind the scenes, how could it have developed to this point?
According to what Hu Lixian said about the internal situation of the Flying Tiger Army, the Eastern Palace now has at least tens of millions of strings of wealth in its hands.

"But Your Highness should not blame yourself too much. The Emperor set up this trap himself, so who can escape it? It is normal for Your Highness to fall into it. It would be strange if you didn't."

Quan Wanji pushed his own responsibility away calmly. Since the emperor had come out in person, it was not shameful to be defeated by him. Even a prince like you had been plotted against. It was reasonable that I, an ordinary official in the Taicang Office, could not predict the emperor's intentions!

"Your Highness did not lose to that coward in the East Palace, but to the wise and powerful Emperor. Even the Emperor Emeritus, the Crown Prince Yin, and the Overlord of the Northern Grasslands, Jie Li, could not defeat the Emperor. As a prince, what else can you say?"

Hearing Quan Wanji's words, Li Ke slowly gathered his frustration and dejected mood. Yes, the Crown Prince, the Crown Prince Yin, and Jie Li, each of them was a hero of the time, and even they were plotted against by my father. Naturally, I, a teenager, was no exception.

Thinking of this, Li Ke's mood suddenly improved a lot, and the look in his eyes when he looked at Quan Wanji became much softer.

Li Ke did not intend to blame Quan Wanji at all. No matter how smart Quan Wanji was, he was just a minor official. Although he was much better than ordinary people, he was still far inferior to the retired emperor and heroes like Jie Li.

It's not good enough to face Li Shimin
It has to be said that as a subordinate, Quan Wanji always considers Li Ke's face, which Li Ke appreciates very much. When being with Quan Wanji, Li Ke's superiority as a superior is fully demonstrated.

(End of this chapter)