Fu Shanhe

Chapter 288 Suicide out of fear of crime
A funny scene appeared, and Shu Zhongyi's mood instantly improved. The best scapegoat appeared.

The unlucky young man was personally appointed by Duke Yansheng with ulterior motives.

If anything happens to Yansheng Duke, he will be the biggest suspect.

The incident turned into an internal fight within the Kong family, and the responsibility on them was suddenly lightened.

With the rescued people, they marched quickly and finally returned to Jinan City on the eve of the enemy's siege on the city.

Duke Yansheng, who was in unbearable pain, fainted halfway along the way.

Due to the lack of effective treatment, the wound had already shown obvious signs of suppuration. The doctors in the city were shocked when they saw it.

With current medical technology, it is extremely difficult to save lives.

For Shandong officials, the only consolation now is that the person was finally brought to Jinan city alive.

The political impact caused by Duke Yansheng dying of illness in bed and falling into the hands of the enemy are completely different.

On this issue, they took timely remedial measures and can be regarded as making up for their crimes.

As for the issue of not providing timely medical treatment, except for the Kong family who were dissatisfied, the other officials did not take it seriously.

The northern barbarians are chasing us so closely that we don’t have time to find a doctor!

There is only one Yansheng Duke, but there are many descendants of the saint.

As long as the person does not fall into the hands of the northern barbarians, the imperial court can enthrone another Duke Yansheng after the death of one.

Facing the gratitude of Shandong officials, Li Mu felt a little embarrassed. He had no intention of saving anyone, but just brought back the half-dead Duke Yansheng by chance.

If it is an ordinary person, if the wound on the lower body becomes inflamed and infected, amputation surgery can be performed to save his life.

Because of the special status of Duke Yansheng, officials in the city did not dare to take responsibility and could only adopt conservative treatment.

Li Mu consulted famous doctors in the city. Although everyone's answers were vague, the final conclusion was: leave the rest to fate and do the best you can.

The goal was achieved by simply delaying the treatment time in a reasonable manner without having to send anyone to do anything.

Li Mu was satisfied with this result.

The injury to Duke Yansheng was caused by the Northern Tartars, and the people who were rescued were all witnesses. Now, of course, the account must be put on the Northern Tartars.

Not only do they not have to take any risks, they also become heroes in the process.

Looking at Marquis Wuyang's brilliant smile, you can tell that he is also very satisfied with the current result.

Happy times are always short.

The joy did not last long, as the main force of the Northern Tartars arrived at the city.

Looking at the enemy troops outside the city, the faces of all the officials changed drastically.

"My Lord, if you need anything, just let me know.

As long as it is possible, we will fully cooperate! ”

Min Kaifeng said with a serious expression.

The 10,000 enemy troops in front of them had already arrived at the city, making them unable to sleep at night.

At this moment, there are more than 100,000 troops gathered outside the city. The defenders of Jinan City alone may not last more than three days.

Now the only one capable of saving Jinan is the army led by Marquis Wuyang.

When it comes to life and death, dominance is no longer important.

Unfortunately, at this critical moment, the governor was ill in bed, and he, as the provincial governor, could only express the opinion on behalf of the government.

"Ok!"

“As for the matter of defending the city, this governor has his own plans.

When cooperation is needed, I won't be polite to you.

For specific matters, you can just contact Admiral Li.

The Northern Tartars' spies are omnipresent, so for safety reasons, the specific battle plan will not be made public."

Marquis Wuyang replied calmly.

There is no battle plan. As the defending party, you only need to defend the city.

Before the northern barbarians arrived, they desperately collected various strategic materials.

The city of Jinan now has well-trained soldiers and sufficient food, so it won't be a problem for it to hold out for one or two years.

As cities were fortified and the countryside was cleared, it became increasingly difficult for the Northern Tartars to obtain food and fodder.

Many times, even if a city is conquered, the gains are very limited.

When the city is broken, the defending officers and soldiers will rush to burn the granary.

Under this background, the northern barbarians did not have the conditions to carry out a long-term siege of Jinan Prefecture.

With a plan in mind, I feel more confident.

"Don't worry, my lords. We already have a comprehensive plan for defending Jinan City.

All we need to do is calm the people and prevent chaos in the city."

Li Mu added.

Defending the city and fighting against the northern barbarians was a plan that had been made long ago.

The previous victory in Jinan was won too easily.

While the army that supported the king gained fame, it also attracted a lot of jealousy.

The wood show will be destroyed by the forest wind.

Now is the time to play the victim, and you have to perform well.

……

Capital.

Upon receiving the news that Duke Yansheng had been rescued, Emperor Yongning breathed a sigh of relief.

The moral bottom line of the contemporary Yansheng Duke is quite flexible.

If this guy falls into the hands of the Northern Tartars, they might immediately send a letter of surrender and directly declare that the Northern Tartar Chanyu is the legitimate one.

Although people all over the world will not recognize the legitimacy of the Northern Tartars, it will weaken his legitimacy as the emperor.

There is no way. It's because the situation in the world has taken a sharp turn for the worse since he ascended the throne.

Except when he eradicated the eunuch party and abolished the factory guards, he was praised by gentry all over the world.

The rest of the time, he was the one being scolded.

The Yongning Emperor, who lacked self-confidence, attached great importance to the legitimacy of his throne.

"Liaodong Town, have you started the action?"

Emperor Yongning asked with concern.

The northern barbarians besieged Jinan with heavy troops, and Marquis Wuyang's troops were trapped in the city.

The troops from Guangdong and Guangxi who are coming to support the king cannot be relied upon for the time being.

The Beijing troops could not move lightly. Xuanfu, one of the nine important border towns, was destroyed, and Datong and Taiyuan towns suffered heavy losses.

Although the four towns of Yansui, Ningxia, Guyuan and Gansu are also elite troops, the core of the imperial court's border defense is in Liaodong.

Coupled with the impact of the White Lotus Rebellion, the court's investment in resources decreased, which seriously affected the development of the four towns.

Both daily training and the number of troops have declined.

In order to stabilize the situation in Sichuan, these four towns all transferred some of their elite troops to Sichuan and missed this opportunity to support the king.

The only remaining Jizhou Town and Liaodong Town are closely connected, and the military families on both sides are showing signs of banding together.

To be precise, it was the Jizhou generals who took the initiative to move closer to Liaodong Town, and the two sides were more like a dependent relationship.

These are all troubles caused by the imbalance of power.

Among the nine frontiers, Liaodong Town is the most powerful one.

The military strength of one town is almost equal to the combined strength of the other eight towns.

Jizhou Town and Liaodong Town are adjacent to each other and share the responsibility of defending against the northern barbarians.

If you want to survive on the border, you can only move closer to Liaodong Town.

Under this background, everyone's attention is naturally on Liaodong Town.

"Your Majesty, yesterday Liaodong Town launched an attack on the Northern Tartars, fighting with the enemy for several hours and killing hundreds of enemy soldiers.

Unfortunately, the enemy reinforcements arrived quickly and we were unable to capture the head."

Zhong Jingming replied nervously.

Anyone with a discerning eye can tell there is something wrong with such results.

The Liaodong Town had a total of 50,000 troops participating in the defense of the king, and the grassland coalition army on the opposite side also had 30,000 troops.

Together with the rest of the Yu Dynasty troops nearby, once the two sides go to war, the number of participants will not be less than 100,000.

A melee involving 100,000 people lasted for several hours, but only a few hundred people were defeated, and not a single enemy head was captured.

In military history, it can be considered a miracle.

Such an obvious loophole is equivalent to directly telling everyone that a tacit understanding has been reached between Liaodong Town and the Northern Tartars.

Zhong Jingming was also very helpless about this result.

The Liaodong Town was willing to send troops only because of his face.

But the Liaodong governor's face was only enough to let them take a walk, which was not enough to make them fight to the death. If it were not close to the capital, and the Ministry of War was not strict in checking the heads of people, they could still fool around by killing innocent people and claiming credit.

Under the watchful eyes of the civil and military officials in the court, the previous tricks could not be used.

In fact, Liaodong Town did not completely disobey orders.

Emperor Yongning also bears a great responsibility for the deterioration of relations between the two sides.

As soon as the northern barbarians invaded, the emperor sent an imperial envoy to hold Liaodong Town accountable.

At one point, several high-ranking generals were dismissed, sparking protests from officers and soldiers in Liaodong. Later, due to the needs of the situation, their positions were restored.

It seemed that the matter was over, but the top leaders of Liaodong Town no longer dared to trust the imperial court.

After all, they do a lot of bad things, many of which are taboo.

According to the laws of Dayu, each of them can be dragged out and tortured to death.

In order to avoid being held accountable by the imperial court later, they took the opportunity to put forward conditions to the imperial court.

To sum up, there are three main points.

1. Request the court to increase military spending in Liaodong Town to ensure that there is no default or arrears in payments and grain.

2. Strive for more personnel autonomy from the imperial court, that is: the main generals will be hereditary and military positions will be nominated by them.

3. Following the example of the Jiedushi system, a military control system was implemented in Liaodong, and civil servants would no longer be appointed at the prefecture and county levels.

This was equivalent to saying openly that he wanted to establish his own regime, and the imperial court would naturally not agree to it.

Even as the commander-in-chief of Liaodong, he did not dare to report such a fatal condition to the imperial court.

Not only did he not dare to report it to the emperor, but all the civil servants in the court were busy covering it up.

It was their decision to support Liaodong Town, and now that they have lost control, it has become their responsibility.

Under such circumstances, all Zhong Jingming could do was to fool the emperor and deceive the generals in Liaodong Town.

The information asymmetry directly led to misjudgment by Emperor Yongning and the generals of Liaodong Town.

Emperor Yongning felt that he was too lenient towards Liaodong Town, which led to these generals becoming arrogant and domineering.

The generals in Liaodong Town believed that the imperial court was seriously considering the conditions they proposed, and as long as they added some bargaining chips, the imperial court would send people to negotiate with them.

They did not expect the court to agree to all three conditions at the same time. If they agreed to any one of them, they would make a huge profit.

If it really doesn't work, they can continue to make concessions.

After all, although Liaodong Town had strong military power, it was heavily dependent on the imperial court for logistics.

If they really fell out and the imperial court cut off their food supplies, they would collapse immediately.

There is no option of defecting to the Northern Tartars.

Although the Northern Barbarians look powerful, they are actually very poor.

The looted wealth basically flowed back to Dayu through smuggling trade.

Just to support their few soldiers, they have to calculate their expenses carefully.

There is simply not enough capacity to support another Liaodong town.

At least the treatment that the vassal troops who defected there received was far worse than that received by Dayu.

"Great!"

“May I ask, Master Zhong, how did Liaodong Town achieve such a legendary victory?

The historians all perked up. This was a historical first, and Master Zhong's sharing must be recorded word for word."

Jing Guoliang immediately mocked.

The Liaodong generals were too greedy. All the troops sent by the court were either killed by them or annexed by them.

During this process, the noble group also suffered considerable losses.

Although they knew that this was against the rules, the imperial court needed the Liaodong Town to work hard, so they had to put the issue aside for the time being.

After waiting so long for this opportunity, Jing Guoliang naturally would not let Zhong Jingming get away with it so easily.

Although this matter alone could not bring down Liaodong Town, it could influence the opinions of the emperor and officials.

Those who support Liaodong Town are merely a group of people involved in the smuggling trade.

Although these people hold high positions in the court, they are still a minority overall.

Most officials lost their favor towards Liaodong Town after the invasion of the northern barbarians.

In everyone's simple opinion, the fact that the northern barbarians were able to take a detour to enter the pass was due to the dereliction of duty of the Liaodong defenders.

If Liaodong Town really wants to intercept the enemy, it can make a direct attack as soon as the enemy takes action and force the enemy to abandon its combat plan.

Things that can be done, but are not done.

In the minds of many officials, Liaodong Governor Zhong Jingming was the person primarily responsible for the invasion of the northern barbarians.

With Jing Guoliang taking the lead, a wave of impeachment broke out in the court in an instant.

At the beginning, there were still people helping with the defense, but they were soon drowned out by the impeachment wave.

Knowing that the situation was out of control, the upright people who originally supported Zhong Jingming decisively chose to protect themselves.

We can get rich together, but we can’t go to hell together.

When it comes to accusing people, civil servants are more professional.

In the blink of an eye, Zhong Jingming was charged with dozens of crimes, and some were even accused of being a traitor of the Northern Tartars.

"Your Majesty, I am wronged!"

Seeing that the situation was not right, Zhong Jingming hurriedly knelt on the ground and cried out for justice.

Unfortunately, Emperor Yongning's resentment towards him was no less than that of his ministers, and he turned a deaf ear to his pleas.

If he had not taken into account the threat from the Northern Tartars and was not worried that dealing with Zhong Jingming at this time might cause a drastic change in Liaodong Town, he would have issued an order to arrest him long ago.

"Your Majesty, Xuanda Governor Li Zhihong committed suicide in prison out of fear of punishment!"

The news brought by the eunuch gave Zhong Jingming a chance to catch his breath.

Doctors are not subject to punishment; this is an unspoken rule in official circles.

Under normal circumstances, officials of this level would be well served with good food and drink even when they entered the imperial prison.

Without the emperor's authorization, the Imperial Guards would not dare to torture him.

The Governor of Xuanda, Li Zhihong, was escorted back to Beijing by the Embroidered Uniform Guards because of his unfavorable performance in battle.

Since the court did not convict him immediately, there was room for maneuver.

After all, the situation this time is special.

Xuan Da's mission is to defend against the invasion of Guifang.

For a long time, the Guifang and Tatars were irreconcilable enemies, and the two sides fought each other every now and then.

No one expected that the Tatars would dare to ask for a passage through the Guifang area, let alone that the two sides could form an alliance.

The enemy was reinforced all of a sudden, so it was normal that the Xuanda defenders could not hold on.

A good cook cannot cook without rice. No matter who is appointed as the governor of Xuanda, he will not be able to stop the invasion of the northern barbarians.

There was also a dispute within the court over how to convict Li Zhihong.

Some people advocated severe punishment for Li Zhihong, while others believed that Li Zhihong's crime was not serious and should be given a lighter sentence.

The voice of the latter is much louder than that of the former.

Everyone is in the court, and no one can guarantee that he will not become an unlucky person. Leaving others a glimmer of hope is also leaving a way out for yourself.

Under this situation, even if the court wanted to impose severe punishment, the crime would not be punishable by death.

But such a person committed suicide in prison.

"Suicide out of fear of crime?"

"The court has not convicted him, so how can he commit suicide out of fear of punishment?

Could it be that someone wanted to torture him into confessing, and Lord Li couldn't bear the humiliation and was forced to commit suicide? "

Prime Minister Wan Junhui immediately launched an attack, pointing the finger at the Embroidered Uniform Guards.

Li Zhihong can die, but he cannot die unclearly.

As the head of the civil servants, he had to step forward when something like this happened.

"Tell me, how did Li Zhihong die!"

Emperor Yongning asked coldly.

In the imperial prison, a place with strict security, it is not easy to commit suicide.

Especially high-ranking officials like Li Zhihong were guarded by jailers for twelve hours.

It would be impossible for him to commit suicide out of fear of punishment unless someone instructed him to do so.

"Your Majesty, I don't know about this matter either.

The message was delivered by someone below, but no details were given on the specific circumstances.

The commander of the Royal Guards has already rushed over to check it out, and I think there will be news back soon."

……

(End of this chapter)